Traveling Adventures Hi! Welcome to my travel journal. I created this so friends and family can keep track of me on my adventures. I'll update this when I can.

Yesterday on my 8 hr layover in amsterdam i went into the city to explore. it was super easy to get into town via the tram and within 15 mins of getting off the plane i was on my way. right when you get out of the centraal station in downtown it is scary tourist land. amsterdam souvineir shops line the street and every one is wearing shoes and hats with cannabis leaves. very tacky. there were even carnival rides. i scurried away from there and headed towards rembrantplein. its a really nice park area lined with cafes and pretty trees. from there i headed down to the central canal ring which was gorgeous. there were almost no tourists there which was great. i wandered around there for a while taking lots of pictures and then headed back to rembrantplein for lunch. i ate at an italian cafe and was the only person there. i ate while being stared at by the staff awkwardly and listening to their epic mariah carey soundtrack. the waitress gave me a FULL glass of the house wine and i ended up drunk wandering around amsterdam. back in the red light district i saw a cool old church and headed for it through an alley way. it was then that i observed the lingerie-clad ladies displaying themselves in the alley-level windows. haha on my way to a church! after walking around the red light district for a bit i headed back to the airport and slept on the floor of my terminal. After i landed i bought a visa and got a few hundred egyptian pounds and made it through customs. mon was waiting outside for me with a "megan skinner" sign. it was so good to see her after so long! even tho it was 1:30am at that point we decided to head to our hostel. we found a reasonable taxi driver and started off. just as in east africa, turn signals, headlights, lanes, and seatbelts are mere formalities. horns are used to announce your presence, so they are used often! our driver got lost so we picked up some random guy who got us more lost. our taxi driver literally kicked him out of the car. finally we got to our place and shannon was there waiting.