Yesterday got off to a frustrating start as we fought with the bike rental app to try and get our bikes for the day. My app refused to work at all and I had to have Swiss guy rent me a bike. Once that was sorted, we started biking north towards the region we were interested in seeing, in a town called Zaandam. The ride up was rather industrial and unattractive, since it seems like most of the port operations and industry of Amsterdam are in that direction. It took us about an hour to get to the area we were targeting, which was on the banks of a river with traditional houses and windmills. It was really pretty although clearly a tourist hotspot. At least there weren't prostitutes hammering on all the windows to try and get my attention. The best part of the excursion was biking back. Instead of going through the industrial area again, we elected to take a longer but more scenic route. It was amazing how rural this route was, seeing as we were never more than about 10 miles from downtown Amsterdam. I guess nobody goes above the Ij. The next couple hours we biked through parks and polders, over arched wooden bridges, and through miles of Dutch wetland. It was easily the nicest thing I've seen since being in the Netherlands. I can feel myself getting more fit from all this walking over the past few weeks - I never felt at all tired despite cycling for many hours straight.

That night we met up with Ugandan guy again and went to an Ethiopian restaurant Garrett recommended to me (it was great, thanks!), and from there went over to a jazz bar with live music. I was amazed how similar the experience was to the jazz bars of America - other than the performers having Dutch accents, I could easily forget that I wasn't in Wally's.

Overall, I had an awesome time in Amsterdam. I met great people who I feel that I can call friends in a way I haven't had thus far on my travels. However, for all its pretty canals and old buildings, I don't really feel the need to come back. Were I not on a shoestring budget, there are a few sights I'd have liked to see, but I ultimately find the segregation between the obviously touristy sections of town and the local regions to be too stark a divide. Yes, every tourist to NYC spends time in Central Park, but so do the locals. Maybe the average Londoner doesn't spend a ton of time in St Paul's Cathedral, but the neighborhood surrounding it is a real place where locals actually live or work or shop. Amsterdam has its incredibly unappealing tourist hotspot sections, and then some pretty but ultimately not that exciting areas everywhere else. I checked reddit at one point yesterday to try and find stuff that actual Dutch people like to do around here, and in the thread titled "What to do in Amsterdam" almost all of the comments just said "leave". I think solo travel has given me a unique perspective on this sort of thing. Normally, when I'm travelling with friends or family, good company is a given and spending time with them ensures that I'll be entertained wherever I go. Not so while solo travelling, and had I not met a good group of people here, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed myself very much. If you're thinking of visiting Amsterdam, I wouldn't book more than a night or two.

Off to Hamburg tonight. I don't get in until after midnight because my train itinerary is incredibly annoying and indirect (but only 30 euros), but I found some pretty cheap accommodation downtown for a couple nights so I'm there until at least tomorrow night. My hostel booking in Berlin begins Friday so I'll have to figure something out for Wednesday and Thursday night, while also getting into Berlin on Thursday to visit that company trying to hire me at their big conference.