Breakfast and packing in the morning, an early lunch with Imke and Hermann including the kids’ most favorite dessert, and then we were off to Amsterdam. We took the bus to the station, but I & H were nice enough to bring our luggage and say goodbye at the station. The train trip went without a hitch, but it took us a while to get to the very seedy hotel by bus from the station. After finding out how expensive it was to store our luggage at the station, we gave up any plans of looking around the city center of Amsterdam, and sorted out how to find the bus. It was only a half an hour bus ride, but the bus took a long time to come (over 30 minutes) and was initially very crowded. The hotel was pretty nasty (with bunk beds and windows that only opened a tiny bit) and the area wasn’t great for eating out, either. But we had some Dutch fast food and Mark and I went for a little walk afterwards, before turning in. None of us had a really restful night, because it was hot and initially noisy, and both Kati and Kai were rather twitchy and unpleasant. But eventually, we all settled down for some sleep