Alpine Summer

No alarm this morning -- I'm sleeping until I feel like getting up. The breakfast (( included in our room price because we got a sweet internet deal )) the hotel served was really good. Lots of pastries, eggs, potatoes, cereals, sausages and bacon, etc. The normal breakfasty-things. I was introduced to Nutella for the first time. We have had it back in Germany at breakfast, I just never thought to try it. It was very good, especially on croissants, and I couldn't believe that it's perfectly acceptable to eat chocolate at breakfast.

After eating, we decided to walk around the town more, checking out some of the shops (( since they close early in the evening )) and seeing what the water was like. I was in search for shoes, as I am wont to feel the urge of not having enough shoes. You can never have enough shoes. Unfortunately, the shoes I found that I liked were quite expensive, and the ones that weren't really didn't scream out to me. However, Luke found a pair of Timberland moccasinesque shoes for 6 Euro; they were the last pair in the store, had been marked down, and just happened to fit in despite not being in the size he normally wears. This is me, jealous.

I did, however, buy a couple of shirts, one from the flea market (( I should also note that there are a surprising number of Asian people here, all of whom have been incredibly nice )) from a Chinese vender, and one from an expensive store. Both were 5 Euro; the one from the expensive store was original 65 Euro.

The river was not very nice. The water looked gross and you had to go down to store fronts to get to it, at least where we were. However, following the river led to the best find of the day. I noticed a store named "Never Never Land" across the river, with the name spelled out in Scrabble letters. I commented that I wanted to see what it was all about, so we crossed the water and came back up on the other side, we stopped in. It turns out that it's a board game store. I have never seen so many board games in one place. Among the cramped shelves, one box stood out to me. Across the side read "ZOMBIES!!!" . . . a friend from the CSU Writing Center had once told us about this game. We pick it up, read the blurbs on the back, and immediately know it must be purchased.

Excited about the game, we grab some lunch, take it back to the hotel with us, and embark on our first zombie-filled adventure. The game has an amazing concept -- there are map tiles, and each person places one at the start of their turn. Thus, the town created is always different. Specific tiles get a specific number of zombie inhabitants, and the players must defeat the zombies and make it to the helipad to escape. The real fun comes in the form of event cards -- each player has three; some help, some hurt, and you can use them on any player. The alliances and cut-throat-ery gets pretty nasty. Overall, it's a brilliant game.

After the zombie game, we head out in search for dinner (( yes, it took that long )). Nothing was found in a reasonable price range other than take-away stands, so we eventually eat in the HC. While there, we talked to an information guy in the train station about when and where the trains run to Amsterdam. He writes down times, tells us this occurs every hour, and also tells us which platforms will have which trains. Brilliant!

When we go back to the hotel, we use the internet to look up the Van Gogh Museum as planned, write down all the information about cost and opening time on Sunday and how to get there and back. Everything seems to be working out perfectly. Because all the shops had closed, we spent the evening watching Short Circuit with Dutch subtitles.