Continuing eastward, I arrived in Amsterdam late on day 6 and met up with an old Montreal friend, Roeland. After making my way through the early Dutch language barrier, which is beautiful to hear and see but unpronouncable to my latin-based abilities, I was able to find the right tram and the Hoofddorpplein stop. Dropping off my 80-liter backpack as quickly as humanly possible, it wasn’t long until we jumped on 1-gear bikes to hit a nearby pub for drinks with the locals. Yes, 1-gear cool retro-style bikes; they are everywhere in this city! Pedestrians beware.

Upon our late return to the apartment, the local media had special bulletins running about an upcoming snowstorm and the cancellation of many trains the next day, recommending that people stay at home or travel in their vehicles with emergency equipment. The expected accumulation? A nice thick 5-10cm. Now for a city that seldomly gets the white stuff and have cars with 12-inch wheels, the alarm is quite justified but the end result gave me a chuckle… and a reminder of Toronto’s state of emergency a few years back where the army was called post-”snowstorm”.