Observation #1: Everyone (or at least everyone who has asked where I'm from) thinks I'm British. I'm not sure why this is. It's not a bad thing, though--I'd much rather be mistaken for a Brit than an American.

Observation #2: Europeans love public space. I'm so jealous. I want to move here.

Observation #3: This is not a cheap country.

I started today (Friday) off on a... not-quite-right foot. I slept in until 1:30. Oops. But it's understandable--I could get to sleep until 7. Tonight, I'm going to try to stay up fairly late (but not as late), and set an alarm so that I'm at least out of bed in time for the hotel's breakfast.

Since I missed the breakfast cut off today, I went to the little pancake place on the Leidseplein and had their pancake special--a pancake with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream, with a free shooter. That was a bit weird, a shooter with my breakfast--and no choice about it either. She just brought me some green apple concoction. It was pretty good. The other funny thing--I was totally expecting some weirdo piece of crap for pancakes, because some American website I'd seen said that Dutch pancakes are 'for the adventurous, nothing like you'd find a IHOP'... so I had no clue what to expect. But it's just a crepe, folks. Nothing really out of the ordinary. I guess they don't have them at IHOP that I've ever noticed though, so that's fair enough.

I spent the day (the afternoon, really) wandering around the Dam Square area and Jordaan. Then I came back to the hotel to get out of the sun for a bit, checked my e-mail, and then headed for the Vondelpark, which is like Amsterdam's answer to High Park. Except that it's a really bad comparison, but this park is actually downtown and people use it in droves. It seems like people here are way more apt to meet up, hang out, and lounge around in public spaces than in North America, and I don't think it's that we're less social or more private, just that we don't have public spaces worth hanging out in. Ugh.

Anyway, that basically takes me to dinner--I got Wok to Walk (Chinese takeout) and ate it on the Prinsengracht (canal my hotel is on). And now, I write this. Woohoo, fun times... Now it's time to go out and find a place with beer and soccer.