Okay - how ridiculously beautiful can one country be? We've grabbed an extra day and a half here in Amsterdam before heading home, and I could so live here! We spent hours just walking around, looking at all the old houses, the churches, and the beautiful canals. We learned very quickly that there are parts of the road for cars and parts of the road for bicycles. Don't get in the way of the bicycles! There are a lot of them!

We did it! After our record of 504 geysers in Cincinnati got beaten by the folks in Texas, we've won it back! The new record: 851 geysers of Mentos-powered soda, all at the same time. It was quite a sight! We spent the morning setting up for our performance: a 105-bottle variation on Experiment #137. With DJ Dazzle playing great music and MC Sherlock getting the crowd whipped into a frenzy, the Kasteelplein (that's Castle Square) was hopping! After our performance, we led the countdown, and all 851 of us (including me & Stephen) set off 851 Diet Coke & Mentos geysers. Actually, over here, it's "Coke Light" & Mentos geysers. Either way, 851 is a lot of geysers, and it looked so amazing. And it made a really, really, really big mess! That's where the cleaning crew was amazing: two hours later, you'd never guess that there'd been that much soda spraying all over the square.

So that's it - a whole lot of fun, and a whole lot of geysers. Right here at the home of Mentos. It doesn't get better than that! Although... we hear rumors that someone is going to try to break this record soon. I guess that means we'll have to come back here to Holland soon and do even more! Bring it on - that could be even more spectacular!

One side note: everyone calls us "The EepyBirds" over here, which is really fun. Our stage was called the "Podium EepyBirds." In the restaurant afterwards, we caught sight of a woman clearly explaining to her friend the whole Diet Coke & Mentos geyser thing, complete with big hand gestures of gushing soda, and in amongst the Dutch explanation, we heard, "de EepyBirds." Too cool!

Just when we thought Holland couldn't get any cooler, we had another great day. After sleeping A LOT, we went to the Mentos factory in the morning. Every year, this place makes a billion rolls of Mentos - that's billion with a B. That's a lot of Mentos. We could make quite a geyser with that many! Inside the factory, we got chased by the robotic forklifts, saw the silos that store the 600 tons of sugar they use every week, and went to the huge warehouse where 6,500 huge crates of candy wait to be shipped around the world - including all the Mentos that we eat (and play with) in the U.S.

We had a nice afternoon walking around Breda. Can I just say that Holland is stunningly beautiful? Everywhere we look, it's like a picture postcard. All these canals, bicycles everywhere, little kids playing soccer in the street... Just as we came out of our hotel this morning, a woman drove by on a bicycle with a basketful of sunflowers. It's all so ridiculously perfect!

After a spiffy radio interview with a reporter switching seamlessly between English & Dutch (which sounds so cool, with long, round vowels interrupted by explosions of phlegmy consonants), we just had to go back to the same restaurant as last night for more tiramisu - the world's perfect dessert.

It's m'birthday, it's m'birthday! And here we are in Holland! Booyah! We're a little bit jet lagged, but we had a great day. We flew into Schipol Airport in Amsterdam bright and early: 8am. That'd be 2am back home. What a great time to start your day! This is our fourth trip to Europe, and every time, as soon as we land, we're headed for a performance. This was no exception: after a quick shower, it was off to the TV studio for an appearance on "Jansen" - one of Holland's biggest TV shows. Jansen was super cool, and we had a great time - sat on the big red couch, talked about our upcoming world record attempt, and did a couple Diet Coke & Mentos stunts. Jansen himself even set off a geyser all over his desk - it was fantastic!

Thursday:

Didn't win an Emmy - but we had a fantastic time! We got to pet a penguin. Yep, a penguin. There were two of them, in fact, wandering around the Emmy Awards. Of course.

We saw Christopher Lloyd, Brian Boitano, and a gazillion soap stars. Kevin, Angela, and Oscar from The Office were there. The voice of Sponge Bob was there. Best of the night: Oscar the Grouch and Elmo gave away a bunch of awards, with their puppeteers right there behind them on stage. I would swear to you that those puppets were alive. And then Caroll Spinney (he's the guy behind Oscar & Big Bird) walked right by us and nodded hello. I don't think I've ever been more star-struck and stupefied in my life than in that moment!

After the ceremony, we all headed to Mel's Drive-In diner in our black-tie fancy clothes for pancakes and milkshakes. Now that's how you celebrate! No big statue, but it was a heck of a great trip. Thanks to all of you for your support. Now we just have to try again for next year!

Wednesday:

Today was amazing! We saw an enormous Elvis impersonator standing right next to a scrawny guy who really shouldn't have been wearing a Superman costume. You gotta love Hollywood! After a fine breakfast at Mel's Diner, we saw Jackie Chan's star on the Walk of Fame and Clark Gable's hand prints in the cement. My favorite: R2-D2 and C-3PO's robot-prints immortalized in the sidewalk.

Our business meetings in the afternoon were great - they could lead to some very cool projects down the road. Don't worry - we're not leaving Maine to move to L.A. anytime soon. But we sure like visiting.

The day wrapped up with a trip to Santa Monica: a walk on the pier and dipping our feet in the Pacific. Or in Stephen & Kim's case, dipping their feet in the Pacific and getting slammed by a huge wave! Heh heh. Mike & I ran faster.

Tomorrow: the big Emmy ceremony. Yikes! Check out the live webcast tomorrow night and keep your fingers crossed!

Tuesday:

Not a lot of excitement today - just a lot of time on airplanes. The guy behind us on the plane stole an extra snack from the galley. And then he spilled tomato juice all over himself. Can you say karma?

Mike & Kim are going with us, which is most excellent. They are the folks who run the Oddfellow Theater, our amazing artistic home base in Buckfield, Maine. Besides being a phenomenal performer, Mike was behind the camera for our first big video.

We're all staying at the Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood - with a great view of the Hollywood sign. How cool is this? We're right next door to the Kodak Theatre where they have the Oscar ceremonies and Graumann's Chinese Theater where all the famous people put their hands & feet in cement. Tomorrow: business meetings with big Hollywood-types and going to the beach!

Monday:

The Emmys are on Thursday. Yikes! I've never worn a tuxedo in my life! So this evening, we went down to JC Penney. Near as I can tell, that's the only place within 50 miles where we can get tuxedos in time - remember, folks, we live in Buckfield, Maine!

The only pants they had for me were four inches too big in every direction. So as I type, our friend Nancy is frantically hemming, cutting, stitching, and moving buttons so that when we leave in the morning, I will actually have a tux. For the Emmys. How very surreal.

Tuesday, June 5:

We ended up setting off 80 bottles (check out the video on CNN). The surprise of the night: we're performing right next to the building, so all our angled geysers ricocheted off the wall. Right onto me! I had several moments of feeling like I was surrounded by firehoses of Diet Coke. I don't think I've ever gotten soaked so much, and we're used to getting soaked to the skin!

My favorite speech of the night was by Clearification: "Thanks, Mom. Whoever you are."

So, now: to sleep for a few hours. Home tomorrow - hurrah! Lots of thanks to David & Michael for making sure that the Diet Coke and trays all arrived for the performance. Thanks to Matt for all the help setting up. Thanks to the Webbys and all their crew for a great couple of days - thanks for the awards! And thanks to all of you for watching and voting!

Monday, June 4:

Tonight was the Webby Online Film & Video Awards - WOW! Who'd have thought, a year ago, that we'd be here, all dressed up, walking on a red carpet with actual paparazzi?! It's exactly a year and a day since we put our first video online. Now we're at over 18,000,000 views. Mind you, the organizers didn't recognize us at first, since we weren't wearing the lab coats and goggles. So they apologetically came and grabbed us from the reception & made us walk back down the red carpet. It was wild - just like on TV: the cameras were snapping, with photographers calling, "over here, over here!" It was so completely surreal!

Acceptance speeches at the Webbys are limited to five words, which makes for some great speeches - and a much quicker ceremony. For our acceptance speech, I got to go up and say: "18,000,000 views. Still no dates." =sigh=

Lots of people came up to me at the afterparty! :)