Close your eyes or click your heels.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.” -William Blake from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Well friends, I’m back from nearly a month in East Africa. It was wonderful, exhausting, refreshing, adventurous, and fun. I hope you followed along on our team blog- the best stories are told there.

I spent Monday on three continents. A few of us had an eight hour layover in Amsterdam during the flight back to the United States. Being an adventurous bunch, we decided to be brief tourists in Europe while we waited.

We took the cheap, 20 minute train into central Amsterdam from the airport. It was still dark at 6:30 AM as we headed out into the city. Our goal was to find a cup of coffee among the morning commuters. Somehow we wandered directly into the red light district. After figuring out that we were in the wrong part of town for the coffee industry, we picked a new direction to explore.

As we were walking, a man stopped us and asked if we were looking for a coffee shop. We said that we were, and he told us that only Central Coffee Shop was open in Amsterdam at 6:30 in the morning. He gave us directions and moved on. We were surprised that he had guessed our purpose, but we also thought that he didn’t seem entirely trustworthy. We kept on with our own search.

About five minutes later another man stopped us an asked if we were looking for a coffee shop. It seemed so unlikely. How could two random strangers have such a clear idea of our search? He had the same news- only Central Coffee Shop was open, and he gave the same directions as our first friend had given. We decided to give it a try.

It didn’t take us long to find the place, and as we got closer a bit of travel trivia popped into my head. We were in Amsterdam. They sell legalized drugs. They sell them in places called coffee shops. Sure enough, instead of a quaint breakfast spot, Central Coffee Shop was a dive bar. The blue smoke inside was spilling out onto the street.

For some reason, no one in our group felt like experimenting with drugs so early in the morning. We were much more interested in getting our hands on our first cup of coffee in a month. Feeling ridiculously naïve, we walked to a restaurant close by, and we laughed at ourselves over piping hot cups of espresso.


All things considered, our group really enjoyed Amsterdam. It was by far the best layover that I have had in my travels. By eight o’clock it was light enough to walk around the canals that divide the city, and we took in the beautiful seventeenth century architecture. The train took us back to the airport with plenty of time for our flight, and we made it safely into Seattle by mid afternoon.


I am astounded whenever I think about the possibilities of modern travel. I was in Nairobi, Amsterdam, Seattle and Portland within one 36 hour stretch (technically just one day). The journey that would take months by land or sea is neatly packaged into one long session of airplane food and movies. We saw so much so quickly, and we only missed most of the world on the way.