This was a big week for work.On Wednesday and Thursday they launched their first ever campaign, KidsOutdoors.My boss thought it would be a great opportunity for me to see it, so I convinced my teachers to let me miss two of my classes so I could go to the launch.The goal of KidsOutdoors is to do just that, get young people outdoors. In order to launch this they had a bunch of Scouts and non-Scouts come to the Dockland Scout Project.It is a boat that is permanently docked in the Thames River, and has been transformed into an activity center/overnight place.The newspapers were all coming to shoot their pictures and interview kids on Wednesday afternoon.I came directly after my one class, but ended up wandering around for over an hour before I finally found the boat.By the time I got there all the newspapers were wrapping up, and I caught the end of it.All the kids were staying at the boat to do more activities and be there incase TV crews came in the morning to shoot some footage.I was invited to stay on the boat. There really wasn't that much for me to do that evening.I watched my bosses brief their Young Spokes People for interviews tomorrow and looked at some of the day's footage.Besides that I had the night to myself, so I kind of lunged around and read for awhile.My room was about 4ft x 6ft (not exaggerating) and of course they were bunk beds.My roommate was a troop leader who had a hell of a time getting to Docklands and was not in the jolliest of moods.We passed out early.The next morning I was woken up by "Please Don't Stop the Music" (yes, the Rihanna song) blaring throughout the boat at 6am.Apparently that was the standard wake up call.The thing is the music never stopped.They played some crazy mix all morning long!Eventually, it was turned down a smidge, but never off.The TV crews ended up not coming, so there was nothing to do that morning.My boss took me back to the office incase they needed me.Yeah, they didn't.I kind of sat around asking if there was anything I could do.Everyone was leaving early, so I got to leave an hour early which was nice.I had to go home and get ready because I was going to Amsterdam in the morning. I went with Jill, Melissa and three guys from next door (Greg, John and Dan).We got their midday Friday and had some time before we could check in so we went to our first coffee shop.Ironically it was also the first coffee shop of Amsterdam, The Bulldog.Following that we went to one of the funniest lunches I have ever sat through.We went to this pizzeria that was connected to a hotel.We walked to the second level and we were all sitting down at the table when Melissa, Jill and I noticed a cat run past our table to the hotel portion.Yup, a cat ran through a restaurant.Funny things is, we did not even contemplate going to a different restaurant.I did opt to order a meatless pizza though, Just in Case.Also during lunch we resolved the age old question of which came first: The pizza or the calzone.Greg was the one who finally cleared up the issue with his insightful comment, "I'm guessing that someone made a pizza a first and then decided to fold it into a calzone.I doubt someone made a calzone and was like, Hey let's unfold this to make a pizza!"The rest of us were not thinking that deeply into it.I think that whole conversation was started by a joke I heard in class...*A chicken and an egg were lying in bed after finishing up their 'business'.The egg was looking satisfied and lied back in the egg enjoying his recently lit cigarette.The chicken was laying their all pissed off with his arms crossed across his chest.After mopping for a minute he finally grumbles "I guess we found the answer to that age old question."Cheesy I know, but when my teacher told me I was cracking up!!Back to Amsterdam...After lunch we went to the hostel/hotel to check in and take a nap.Our hostel was a hotel turned into a hostel.It was a little ways outside the city in a probably not the best area.We kind of felt like we were in a war-torn Russia and that Hitler's troops had slept in this hotel when they invaded Amsterdam.Our room was pretty funny too.Here is the best way to picture our room: Imagine a typical cozy hotel room with a large desk and one queen bed; now take out the queen bed and add three bunk beds.Only one person could fit between the bunks at a time.On top of that add a bathroom which had a very janky shower in it.Every time someone showered we added another half inch to the puddle on the bathroom floor.Yup, that was it.We made the best of it though. Later that night we went to the Red Light District.Oh man, I knew it was a very liberal place, but I had no idea how liberal.First off they aren't exaggerating when they say window girls.It is random buildings with glass doors/windows.You pick out the woman you want and walk up to their door.They open and negotiate with you and you are either accepted or denied.We ended up in some random bar to have a few drinks.We wandered around for awhile before heading back to hostel.Saturday was out cultural day.The first planned trip was the Anne Frank museum.On the way there we saw a shoe store somebody wanted to stop in.We walked inside this little store and all were glancing around.Nobody said anything at first but all the shoes looked massive!I picked up a cute pair of boots and the scariest women ever approached me.She was about 6' 5", dressed in all black with harsh, masculine features.In a deep/low voice with her Dutch accent she turns to me and says, "We only sell big shoes.Sizes 45-54 women's, and 50-58 men's."I tried to BS her and be like "Oh I know, I'm just browsing."Then we turned around and got the heck out of there.I thought she was going to eat me!We all decided that she could have kicked the crud out of all of us, at once.Then we started our cultural day.We went to the Anne Frank house/museum (so touching and interesting) then to the Waterloopian market (pretty much a really big garage sale) and then to the Van Gogh museum.We also hit up some museum with a 20 letter name that I could never pronounce, but it was towards closing time, so I did the fastest walk through ever.That night we wandered around the city again stopping whatever places looked interesting.By the time we had breakfast and checked out on Sunday, we only had a few hours.First we took a canal ride which was really pretty and then wandered the streets.We got back Sunday evening.We all felt pretty gross by the time our trip ended because all they sold there was fried foods.They had some sort of street vendor every other store.Here are just some of the foods I ate: Pizza, fried sandwich, waffle covered in chocolate, hamburger, etc.Pretty much complete crap.I really like Amsterdam, but it is one of those places that I went to and do not need to go back to anytime soon.I got it out of my system and now there are other places I would rather visit.