"It's just like it didn't happen. It's weird. We prepared for so long," said Martyntje Quik, coxswain of the women's eight-person squad from the Nereus rowing club in Amsterdam.
Quik's crew includes Marleen vander Velde, who was part of an eight-person team placed sixth in the 1996 Olympics.
This was the first year the Nereus women's crew could accompany the men's team to the event.
The Amsterdam team hoped for a night of party-hopping before their flight home today. They said they were not going to let the cancellation. "We're going to screw the organization," said Christine Vink. Katszushiko Nakamizo, a rower with NTT Tokyo who was going to participate in the event, was among a number of visitors who, having been washed away from the river, explored Harvard Square. Collecting Harvard regalia in the Coop, Nakamizo said he hopes to return next year. Other visitors congregated in local bars. Brian M. Winkie of Portland, Maine, who traveled to Cambridge to watch the event, said he was "pretty disappointed." But gesturing to his friends around the table at Shay's Bar, with beer in hand, he said, "It's not a total loss.