Big opening for a bland offering.

Last Thursday here in Amsterdam, they opened a brand new H&M flagship store. In the spirit of Thanksgiving/Black Friday/curiousity, I got up at 5 am to check this out. Namely because they advertised free gift cards for the first 100 people in line with a surprise amount between 5 euros and 500 euros. I thought I'd go at least for the spectacle. Plus, you never know. I had a good feeling that maybe I'd be that lucky 500 euro cardholder if I did in fact make it within the 100 person limit. Matthias was also intrigued by this early stand up and decided to join me once he saw it was for real and discovered both of his classes were cancelled. His bike had a flat tire, so we had to buddy ride mine and it was freezing cold. I wore my raccoon fur jacket (vintage from mom) and we both had yellow hats in different shapes made from the same sweater. We also had a large army bag because Matthias was to pick up some equipment from school, so we looked like street folk out to collect. It was dark out and very few Dutch people were stirring. We arrived promptly at quarter after 7 (grand opening scheduled for 10) and saw quite a few people standing about. "Do you have cards?" asked a girl as we walked confusedly up to the red carpet being laid for customer entry. She showed us a lanyard with a grey card in plastic around her neck. "No, what for?" I asked, but Matthias had already sprung into action. He was on the red carpet and walking toward him was a well dressed woman holding two such lanyards on either side of her head. "Who are the last two?" She was asking in Dutch, looking at Matthias. "US!" He says, and that was that. Quarter after 7 and we were 99 and 100 in line. Hahahahha. "For this, I love how organized Dutch people are. Now we don't have to stand around wondering!" Matthias exclaimed. We had great hopes that one of our gift cards was the 500 euro winner. After 2.75 hours in the freezing cold drinking free coffee, gawking at tourists gawk at the line, and a loud musical buildup to a confetti burst, we discovered our grand total was 10 euros between us. The selection of accessories and small items turned out to be rather paltry and the clothing selection somewhat boring in my opinion. We couldn't decide if we should each buy socks or the whole amount should go toward a tie for Matthias' new job, so we buddy rode home and took a nap on the couch.