non-existing u-turns
today we woke up relatively early to go to the US consulate in the middle of amsterdam to get some papers noterized for the sale of our house. the parking in amsterdam sucks. hell, the whole driving experience- especially when one is not experienced in such experiences- sucks. so even though we had directions, and a small bundle of maps, we managed to cleverly get lost along the way numerous times. somehow, never mind that the netherlands has about 10 times the amound of signs as the US, when you need em they arent around. anyways, after nearly running over a few people, almost being ran into by a couple trains, and hoping a curb to go around a bus, we realized that the U-turn we were supposed to take did not, in fact, seem to be in existence. in an attempt to end our adventure there, we opted to just park and walk. we finally found it after asking someone (very uncharacteristic of dad might i add). after that it was just a bunch of hassle and we were out of there. that was when we learned that we really only parked about a block or so away, and had walked the long way around.

what i learned: 1) the belt i was wearing should never be worn when going through a metal detecter. or about 5 in this case. 2) next time, we are taking the train.

that was our excitement for the morning. other than that there isnt too much news. it is unusually warm here though- about mid 80s+ which would be fine if we had ac. i think its about the same temp here as it has been in Houston, just without the ac. apparently this is the first time in 20, 30 years (i cant remember what the guy said) that there have been 2 heat waves in one summer. just thought that was an interesting little tid-bit for yall.