The world tour rolls on

Tomorrow morning we're off to Amsterdam, where I have a few days of meetings and Gretchen is going to tag along and do a little shopping and exploring (and don't tell anyone, but she's also thinking about taking a guided tour of the Red Light District). It's a drag that I'll be spending so much time in meetings, because I'm a big fan of Amsterdam (and no, I don't smoke pot). The tourist areas aren't so great, but otherwise it's got beautiful houses lining the canals, it's flat so it's great for walking aimlessly for hours, people make riding a bike look effortless and stylish (last time we were there we saw a bachelorette party of 15 or so young women riding their bikes around), they speak English better than half the Americans I know (despite Dutch being even more guttural and hard to understand than Swiss German), the beer is excellent and so are the vlaamse frites (French fries, but better), there are plenty of good Indonesian restaurants, shops are actually open on Sundays, etc. We'll see if Gretchen agrees after spending a few days there on her own...