We were the cliché American backpackers   Standing on the side of the road in the rain   With our cardboard sign written in black sharpie   That read Amsterdam   We were going to Amsterdam      So we weren't surprised by the looks in the eyes   Of the people in their cars when they passed us by   And the gave us the middle finger   Or the thumbs up or thumbs down      But we stayed tough, we stood our ground   And by the end of the afternoon   We got dropped off in the middle of this town      Now everyone will tell you 'bout the coffee shops   And everyone will tell you 'bout the red-light district   But somehow up to now it seems they all forgot to mention   The millions of bikes locked to the millions of bridges   That arch up like rainbows to cross the city's millions of canals   That run down every street with the houseboats nice and neat   And the buildings lean so much you think that they might fall down   Like the rain that day that drove us to a stoop      Gotta feel sorry for all the hippies   That came here in the '60s   Now they don't know who they are    We watched one of them playin' flute   He was tryin' to earn some change   We had spent all of our money for that day   We grew hungry and the rain just came and came      And oh how I wished I had some of those fries   All the people were eating when they passed us by    And I closed my eyes for a minute or two   I opened them up when I got a nudge from you   There was the hippie, the one with the flute,    And holding in his hands was my wish come true   And he handed me the whole thing   And this whole interaction felt was more like a dream   He was readin' my mind it seemed   Like a genie granting wishes for people on the street   And we never could have thanked him enough   I don't know if he knew how much it meant to us      And that night in a tent we counted all our money   And we figured out how long we could stay   The way it looked to me we could live here forever   Sleep in the campground, eat falafel every day   But that's not what we came here to do   We had so much more left to see   And though this place felt so nice   We made our plans to leave      And we went to this park where they had free bikes at the gate   Spent the day riding through the trees and it felt great    We were offered a place to stay on the floor of someone's office   But we chose to sleep beside the interstate      And the sounds of the cars passing by   Put us right to sleep   Nothin' beats layin' right under the stars   And I always feel safe when you're sleepin' beside me