We drove through the night to get to Amsterdam after departing the Camp.  We arrived at 2:30 in the morning, and our city host was gracious enough to allow us to come that late and still stay with him.

Johnny is the ultimate web search guru, and he can always find amazing prices for just about everything.  For this trip, he had our cost for housing down to a level that amazed everyone.  Then I read in one of our guide books about FREE hosting in people's houses.  The places Johnny had found for us were often in people's houses, as well.  I was very much looking forward to getting to view Europe a bit through the eyes of the local residents.

Jeff, our Amsterdam city host, lives on the second floor above the street level (known in USA as "third floor" but in Europe as "second floor") in a typical Amsterdam building.  The stairs are very steep, and furniture and other things are moved into a house through the window.  You can see in the photo to the right how each column of windows has an arm over it.  A pulley is attached to this arm, and furniture is pulled up and into the building in that way (as pictured below).