E-Dog's BP

I know we're really setting the bar pretty high for bachelor parties.

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We flew Ethan to Prague where he met friends John, Mike and Steve. They spent a night in Prague then drove for a couple days through Germany. They spent a night in Wurtsberg and a night in XXX. The final destination being Amsterdam for 6 days of fun.
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Here is Matt in Dam Square. We took a walk through the city before everyone else showed up. We were really going to be a great time with these guys.
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I met Matt in Schiphol airport and we made our way to Centraal Station in Amsterdam. We went and checked into our hotel, then took a stroll through the city, stopping for a couple beers in the Red Light District.

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This is us out the first night. It was great to be hanging out in Europe with the fellas. Everyone was pumped for a good time. You couldn't beat the mood, we were all psyched!

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Here is the bicycle parking lot outside Centraal Station. It has 2500 bike spots and it's still really tough to park a bike. There are more bikes in Amsterdam than cars.

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We rode around everywhere. Here we are before hitting the Van Gogh museum.

.We loved this tree in Vondel Park on the SW side of Amsterdam. The tree apparently had fallen over, but continued to grow. The tree still looked pretty strong, so they let it keep growing.

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It would have been chopped right down if that happened in the states, but in Amsterdam it's cool!

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Here's place that was awesome for hanging out. We played a ton of pool, drank a bunch of beer and closed the place at 2 a.m. (it was an early bar).

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Here's a picture of Matty at a sandwich shop right on the back side of the Nieuwe Kerk (new church - built in the 1420's after the Oude Kerk (old church - built in 1306) ran out of space). Great perspective in this picture.

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I took this picture looking down on the guys on their bikes after climbing up a metal half pipe in a small skate park right outside the Van Gogh museum on the SW side of the city.

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Here's a picture from a canal boat tour. The weather was gorgeous and the canal buildings even more so.

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It was cool to be in the water and get some of these pictures.

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Ethan and John were making a few friends as we tried to claim tables on the canal boat.

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Ethan and I took a trip on Monday about 30km south of Amsterdam to a town called Nieuwegein. We went to watch a stage finish in the 2007 Tour du Benelux.

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There was a massive jumbo-tron for the spectators to watch before they arrived at the finish.

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It only took us about 25 minutes to get down there from Centraal Station and we found a great bar w/a huge TV screen playing the race 100m from the finish line. We had plenty of time to walk right out and watch the finish. Couldn't have been more perfect. We met a fry-cook there from Brooklyn too... go figure!

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Here's Luciano Pagliarini of Saunier Duval who won this stage. It was pretty cool to see all the pro teams. There was so little security here. After the race, the cyclists all walked their bikes through the crowd to the team buses.

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Ethan said it was VERY different than security at the TDF.

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Here's a great nighttime pic of some canal houses. It really feels nice to be riding our bikes home through these canals. The age of the city is pretty amazing and it entered into the way I felt just riding around.

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I could easily live in this city (if we only had EU passports!).

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The last afternoon we had some time to kill, so we sat here in the lobby of our hotel and played cards for a while. We could order beers and play poker at the tables completely undisturbed.
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Ethan and Phil went out earlier int he week and bought mentos, black licorice and some other white candies that we used for chips. The only down side was the horrid smell of feet coming from the black licorice.
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Here are Ethan and I on the morning he and Matt left for the states. It was so nice that we could take this much time over here. We're so incredibly lucky to have these opportunities.
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This is it! Last picture before sending them off to the airport from Centraal Station.

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It was such a great week!

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I had a day on my own now before Karen arrived the following day. I proceeded to ride all the canals around the city and photograph as much as I could.

.I'll leave you with a couple nighttime pictures from the canals. It's a really beautiful city... my favorite in Europe so far.

. This one is for Phil.

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This is his Amsterdam city cruiser. This is Phil's answer for transportation in the future.

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Thanks guys!