Amsterdam, Netherlands

After seven (7) hours on the plane, we were scheduled for a six (6) hour layover in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is Europe’s largest tourist destination most likely because they have legalized prostitution and cannabis.

We departed from the airport and took what we thought was the "Express" train. We thought it should only take us around 15-20 minutes from the airport to the City Center. After 30 minutes, we determined that we were on the wrong train. We managed to get off the train and change to the correct one with no incident and were in the City Center now almost an hour after we landed.

Although a bit tired, everyone was in good spirits as we went out on a walking tour of the city. There was quite a bit of construction however; we made our way to De Wallen, also known as Walletjes or Rosse Buurt. This area is a designated area for legalized prostitution and is Amsterdam's largest and most well known red-light district. Surprisingly, this neighborhood has become a very popular tourist attraction. It consists of a network of roads and alleyways containing a lot of what appear to be small, one-room apartments rented by females who offer their services from behind a window or glass door. This gives “window shopping” a totally new meaning for me and my family.

It was now around 8:00am so there wasn’t much action as many, but not all, of the windows were empty. It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine what the area looked and felt like at night. Many of the windows are illuminated with red lights and others with flashing signs to draw perspective clients to view their offerings.

After around an hour of walking, we decided to get a cup of coffee and a small bite to eat. As we strolled along the main road, our senses we tantalized with the smells of fresh baked pastries and breads. I don’t know about you but, that is one of my most favorite smells in the whole world.

We finally decided to stop in at a small Illy Espresso shop. We were greeted by a very nice waitress that knew perfect English and placed our orders. My dad ordered a piece of “Apple Pie”, which was more of an apple tort and Denise and Kyle split a Dutch Ham and Cheese Panini and I had a Dutch cheese and Tomato Panini. The bread was so fresh and had dried herbs baked into it and the cheese was so decadently creamy, it was the perfect snack to carry us to the next leg of our journey.

We returned to the airport with an hour to spare as we attempted to close our eyes for a bit prior to boarding the plane to Prague.