NH Utrecht. I am in the top floor right now and everyone is asleep. 

Amsterdam

Well, it was all I cracked it up to be. We went to Amsterdam and on the way I had food items of note: (see pics below). Once in Amsterdam, we took a canal cruise tour and then went to the Van Gogh museum. I learned that you pronounce his "Van Goff" and about his struggle as a painter. But even more importantly I put an end to a week old, internal struggle: the quest for public tap water. I had to travel all the way to Amsterdam in order to find the oasis in the desert (see pic below). I knelt down to it and began praying; praying to the water gods for allowing me to realize how much they do for me.

In our little tour thingy, we found out that all Amsterdam houses have this support beam sticking out of it for hoisting objects up to the higher building stories because the stairs are too narrow to carry up anything big.

I check out tomorrow from the great NH. I say good night to you, NH.

Nathan

Why are there beams sticking out of the tops of houses in Amsterdam? 

Amsterdam Central.

Metropolis. A concert hall 

PUBLIC WATER FOUNTAIN!!! (i stayed here for a while) 

Frite Met (previously known as patat met on this blog, however, I have seen frite met more often now.) 

They don't have diet coke!!! So I drank this instead. I think it has different sweetners, but I can't tell the diff. 

Main conference lecture room. Dutch Theta. 

Bikes, bikes and more bikes. Everyone rides them and I hear pedestrians often get in their way ;) 

Honestly, who shops here? 

Here is valuable dutch to learn: We don't serve tapwater! 

Can you look through the rain and see the rainbow? (pic and caption soon to be an inspirational poster)

Still Sleepy...Headed for Amsterdam

Okay, I am up a little early and waiting for us to leave for Amsterdam so I will try and catch you up on the happenings of yesterday. AAMAS came and went. I gave a poster session and 3 or so people came by, but I spent about 20 mins with each of them. I got to see Pradeep gave his talk as the last paper of the last session of the last day and it was good, but he just got a little nervous. They showed us a little bit about next year's conference site: Hakodate, Japan. I am excited to visit that part of the world :)

So then we said our AAMAS goodbyes and Janusz and Jon took off, so it was Praveen, Pradeep and I again. Steve and his friend John and Mei came along with us to go do some Utrecht sight seeing. This allowed me to visit, but not enter, the waterworks museum and some of the other random things (see pics below). At last year's teaser to this conference, they bragged that Utrecht was the birthplace of Miffy, a European children's book and TV show revolving around a rabbit. Well, turns out Miffy is 50 now (see pic below).

We did some girl watching (rating) and argued whether the Utrecht girls look nicer than LA girls. We didn't really talk to them or anything, just watched ;) I got sick of that after a while and so I invited everybody up to the hotel room for a movie. I had a few on my computer, but they opted for a slow moving subtle comedy, The Life Aquatic. Needless to say I fell asleep at parts and will have to watch it again in a better setting. After that, Alessandro and Vittorio text messaged us to let us know that they were going to be at this night club downtown. Praveen, John, Steve and I met them there at midnight, but on the way, we had to stop and get some good pre-party food. And what works better than a Pitamac from McDonald's (see ad below). It was actually pretty good.

Aside: When rating girls on a 10 point continuous scale today, Praveen commented that he had only seen one 9.0 this week, which was our waitress at the pancake place we ate at on the first day. And as we entered, I being obsessed with girls in service, recognized that very same girl, which made the enterance fee more than worth it for Praveen. Didn't even have to talk with her.

The night club, started off kind of slow, but we ended up joining a larger group with 3 more guys and 3 dutch girls. I ended up talking with them each for a while. I got about as far as I could in conversation in a club. It was nice to talk to some girls and it was easier that we were all part of a group so I couldn't get shot down as easily. It was also nice to have Praveen stay out and dance with me for the whole time. We all went out to eat a snack after dancing continuously for hours. I was soaked in sweat. I finally tried 'patat met,' which someone had recommended :) It means 'potato with' and what it is with is mayonaise. It was good. When parting, one of the girls even winked at me ;)

Well I am also strongly considering going to Rome now, following the Italians. I will check out tickets from Nurmberg.

I will just plaster you guys with a bunch of pics now :)