arrived in amsterdam late monday night, parked my bus close to the nsdm wharf, across the water from the central station, where its free and safe to park, and you take the free shuttle boat to the station ... bring your bike !
then discovered the route, and took my spot pretty early, next to the three ladies who made that great banner " welcome home heroes " I also made sure no commercial rats managed to dress up "our bridge" with their coca cola or heineken flags -- we brought our own flags !
to kill time, the crowd had fun kicking balls across the canals, one window broke, but the kicker even went up to the owner under loud cheers, to sort it out .... when my chance came I thought about those windows too much, and my attempt ended in the water -- where the water police picked them up so we could continue ....
when the boat finally came, the crowd exploded including myself ... what a discharge, to charge their batteries a bit ..... ruuud hesp threw one of the orange "I am sterdam" caps up to us but it ended up in the water, the flowers he threw after that, I did manage to catch .... kept one orange flower !
