“Life is like a taxi. The meter just keeps a-ticking whether you are getting somewhere or just standing still.” -Lou Erickson

I arrived in Amsterdam this evening to work on an audit, and I’m coming home on Wednesday. The bus drivers in Geneva drive articulated buses like they are Smart cars, but my taxi driver from the airport to hotel in Amsterdam made them all seem like snails. He was going 150 kilometers per hour, which, per google, is about 93 mph. I feared for my life. As I prayed to God that I would survive from the back seat, I wondered how many other people had prayed from that same place. God was probably like, “Ah, you again. No worries, I already have a file on this guy. You’ll be fine.”

Another small note about Amsterdam, I’m pretty excited about the hotel shampoo and soap. It is all a nice, mainstream brand that smells good. If you know me at all, you will know how happy this makes me. You never can trust hotel shampoo. Jenn and I also know this from experience from a certain orange spice shampoo incident in Vegas…

John and I spent this weekend exploring our area. We went to the local French market Saturday morning and made our first market purchases of cheese, salami, olives, and caramel. We then went to the grocery store and ran several other errands. Today we went on a death march around the countryside in our area. These always start off so innocently, ie: today we went to go to the bakery to get a snack… and end so much longer afterwards. At least I was wearing comfortable shoes this time rather than, say, flip flops in Hawaii or boots in Bellingham, for example. On our “walk” we found several interesting doors that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Very strange. We could just imagine the mom in this family telling the kids to look both ways when opening the back door. 

We also got the great news that our furniture is supposed to arrive next Saturday! Wahoo! I am most excited to get my gloves. Although the weather report says it’s in the 50s, John and I are sure that it isn’t. My hands are sure too.