A funny thing happened...

Well, we have officially been here for 2 weeks today and are doing much better and finding our way around the city.  We've both now got a full week of work under our belts and are starting to get into a more "normal" routine.

We've discovered that St. Patty's Day isn't quite the huge deal in Amsterdam as it is back in the States.  There were of course, many people dressed up and celebrating the day, but nothing like the magnitude of celebration back home, where EVERYONE wears green regardless of heritage.  We did go out for a few drinks and something to eat with Jen Lyons and her boyfriend Jim (Dan's colleague from Grand Rapids), and that was nice to be able to have visitors from home!

We had quite the experience yesterday with our chipcards for the metro and tram.  Before we met up with Jen and Jim, we went to Centraal Station to reload our chipcards, just as we did the weekend before.  It was a fairly nice day out, so we decided to walk to Rembrandt Square where we were meeting Jen and Jim.  It was not until we were leaving to get on the tram to return home that we discovered that for some reason or another, our cards were not working.  We could not figure out why or how this happened, as we both had just reloaded them with a sufficient amount of money.  We asked someone at the metro station where we go to head home, and they suggested we go back to Centraal Station and find out what happened.  Off we headed and then had to re-explain everything.  One of the GVB officers didn't believe Abby but let her through the gates anyways, making sure to tell her to buy a ticket.  We finally found out that we needed to go to the GVB Information office across the street and as luck would have it, they close early on the weekends and we missed the time by just about 1 hour.  Finally we just decided to buy 24-hour chipcards and we are going into the GVB Information office this afternoon to find out what happened.

Just when we thought the evening could not get any more strange, we were on the metro heading back home when a woman we assumed was a GVB officer came and started scanning tickets.  Luckily our 24-hour ones were read, so that was no issue.  There was a man that was with her but kind of stayed off to the side - it is very hard to explain.  We were both very confused as to what was going on, as both of these people were in plain clothes and then both simply started talking with random people on the metro.  A few stops later, both of them got off and that was that.  We both just looked at each other and said, "Did that really just happen??"  It was the strangest thing.  We made up stories about what could possibly have been going on, such as they were undercover police or running a scam or something like that, so that was definitely amusing!

We hope all is well back home and that everyone is healthy and happy!  We are looking at coming home from June 9th until probably the 23rd for Abby's cousin Jill's wedding and are definitely looking forward to seeing a lot of family and friends while home.

As usual, thanks to everyone for your support!