Amsterdam + 2

Hello Everyone,
After another hearty hotel breakfast this morning combined with a few cups of coffee and hot tea we set out for another packed day in Amsterdam. Today was a day to line out future parts of our trip so we set out for Grand Central Station which is the train station here in downtown Amsterdam. We needed to find out how to validate our rail passes so we can continue on to western Germany tomorrow. We must have sabotaged ourselves by thinking that most people in public service here would know good English. The workers at the train station had very poor English and it was hard to understand the who's, what's and when's of the railpass situation. The worker explained to us (roughly) that we have a train to catch at 12:30 and one connecting train before we hit our destination. After both of us nodded, pretending that we knew what he was saying, we took our information, and hopefully all goes well.
Our walk today also took us through the famous "Red Light District". I could smell the hepatitis in the air. In all seriousness though, it is a fairly clean area that is regulated by the government. The first prostitute we encountered resembled a portly, man-like, mannequin with giant breasts, sitting in a window, so needless to say it we made it a quick walk.
Next on the list of things to scratch off was renting bicycles. We were a bit nervous about this considering that everyone here is a seasoned professional, and we were unsure how they would tolerate "newbies". We pushed our nerves aside and made our way down very narrow streets towards the park. The winding roads in the garden filled park treated us quite well, there were no vehicles allowed, so it was pretty casual and let us get used to riding. When we reached the end of the road for the park we decided to try our luck on the streets. First things first, I'm not sure if they had better bikes or what the deal was, but we were passed numerous times by women half our size and twice our age like it was nothing. We stuck to our guns though and pressed on. We weaved in and out of traffic, through populated streets, back through the park and were back to our hotel. All in all, it was a fantastic time and I am glad we rented them.
After a long bike ride and rest we headed back out for dinner. We wandered through the eatery streets and found a nice little Italian place. When our pizza came it wasn't sliced, so we were unsure if this was a joke on Americans or if this was customary, either way we were to hungry to care. We couldn't finish the first part of the trip without visiting a coffee shop so that is where we ended our night. Check back for more later!