Hallo From Amsterdam!

It's finally time! A blog about my first "Real Adventure" outside of London!

AMSTERDAM

Ok so first, I am sorry for tricking you all in the last post cause I never actually talked about my adventures in Amsterdam, but this is for real now.

So it starts with our train ride in the pouring rain to London Gatwick. When we arrive we come to find our plane is non-existent. Yep. No gate, no terminal, no time: Nothing. Oh no. But finally we come to discover it was delayed... 4 hours. Ouch. So with this in mind we grabbed a bit to eat at an over-priced airport restaurant. Then we went to go sit and wait... Well all of a sudden it said our plane was boarding!

What is going on?! It said four hour delay ten minutes ago and now we are boarding?! This could be bad....

So we make our journey through the airport... and finally find our gate. But it wasn't really our gate. It was a bus! What?!

So we get on this mystery bus which takes us to a totally different part of the airport where we get off in the pouring rain and walk through some random terminals before walking back down and outside to a "new plane?" Very confusing indeed, but we made it to the plane. So Far So Good.

After a very rocky take-off and a couple doodles 45 minutres later; we land in Amsterdam! How crazy is that?! In another country in less than an hour! Amazing.

Upon arrival we are lost. What to do where to go??? But then we found another trai we needed to take, but weren't exactly sure if it was the right one. Anyone out there speak fluent Dutch? Yeah, us neither. But we shoved on the train and found it to be PACKED! So we just kept walking through the train till we finally found a car with a couple seats to sit down. Soon enough we really made it to Amsterdam! (or atleast the part we wanted to be in)

Wow what a sight. We walk out of Centraal Station to an amazing view of the canals all lit up with a church in the distance, and Centraal Station in itself is an amazing piece of architecture! So beautiful! And you are immediately surrounded by cobble stone streets and a city full of history. I couldn't get enough! There was just so much to see and discover! But then reality hit and we realized we had to actually go find our Hostel.

So we take off in a random direction hoping for the best and now we had to read directions that contained street names like Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal and Eerste Bloemdwarsstraat. All while avoiding the bikes. Yes bikes... Not cars.

Where to begin on these. Uhm well there are more bikes then people out there I like to believe. It was unreal! And they basically have more right of way then the cars! It was so hard too cause you never know where to look on the streets. They drive normally, but they have lanes going every direction! There are trams, and cars, and mopeds, and I swear I may or may not have seen a bike with a bike on top of it. It was insane.

But thankfully some man on the street recognized us being lost and pointed us in the right direction of our hostel and 20 minutes later we finally arrived!

Our hosel was called Shelter Jordan and it was a Christian Hostel. We walked in, a little weary of what our first hostel experience was going to be like, but it turned out amazing! The people were so friendly and it had a place to lock our luggage up if we didn't want to use our huge lockers, and we opted for an 18 person girl dorm which ended up not even being that full the first night!

So we walk in to find our bunk beds, and are greeted by a cheery face. Turns out another girl from UW La Crosse who is studying abroad in Spain was staying in the beds next to us! What an amazingly small world!!!

So we unpack and get settled in and set off for something to do. Mind you we have no idea where we are going or what we are going to do, but we ended up at a place called Tetra Bar and Cafe. It was a really unique setting. Very dark but immersed in lights of different reds and blues and yellows and oranges with no set theme to the decorations that rangedfrom a Light Up Titanic poster to a cat. Yes a cat. But it turns out Cat's are a good thing! They mean that the place didn't have rats. Very good piece of information for future reference.

So we head home to get some sleep because on Friday we had a big day ahead of us!

In the morning we wake up and head downstairs to the Hostels' Breakfast. Oh my goodness it was so delicious! We got hot pancakes with this Dutch Syrup. It was heaven in my mouth. A mix between nutella and maple syrup. So good!

After breakfast we hit the streets, literally, and went on a 3 hour walking tour. It was so much fun and really informative, but was really unfortunate how cold it was. I lost all feeling throughout my body... but no worries. Our tour guide Bernard (pronounced Burr-nerd) kept my interest.

It began in Dam Centaar. Where we then headed on over to the Red Light District. This was....interesting to say the least.... Learned all about the "women" (not always), in the windows, what they do and how they do it. Very uncomfortable. Some would draw their curtains as we walked pass while others really began to flaunt it. Gross. But no pictures allowed. They apparently get extremely upset and will throw ammonia on you as well as smash your camera.... Crazy.

But after that we continued walked and learned all about "pissoir's" which are public places for men to "relieve themselves" and the we learned all about the architecture of the city.

It is so interesting because all the buildings and houses lean out. The higher you get on the building, the more it leans! and because of all the canals and flooding all the buildings are pemanantely crooked because in Amsterdam you can only own a house for 25 years before you have to buy it back again. So most people just adjusted to their houses becoming crooked and put in crooked windows and doors and what not instead of actually fixing it since they may or may not always own that property!

Ok so I am sorry I am giving you all a history lesson, but it is really interesting if you see it in person!

A brief summary of all the other stops on the tour included Blood Road next to the Weighing House, one of five Catholic Churches in all of Amsterdam, highest spot in Amsterdam,the world's largest floating flower market, and so much more!

It was amazing! and during the middle of it all we got to stop at a coffee shop (a real coffee shop with coffee), and grab a snack/drink. I tried a new drink called Funkey Monkey and it is the most delicious thing I have ever had in my life... next to StroopWafels! Holy Heaven! They are two wafers with caramel syrup inbetween that you can either eat alone or dip in hot cocoa or coffee. Regardless, it is a litle slice of heaven everytime I eat one!

During this time I also wanted to live the dream and run into a flock of pigeons and watch as they would all fly off into the sunset in synchronization. Yeah well note to all you dreamers out there: Pigeons don't move. I ran and ran and ran. and I think one may have even jumped AT me. It was unbelievable. Not a single one even flinched. What are they doing to their birds out there?! Well, regardless there I stood in a flock of pigeons having half of Amsterdam stare at me in the Dam Centaar after I just epically ran into a flock of unmoved birds. Stupid American Girl.

But after the tour we decided to travel on and explore and ended up at the Anne Frank Huis Museum. Very interesting and sad. Crazy to think I walked through their secret bookcase and stood in her bedroom where she slept and all of that. It was really almost eerie...

But after a long day of freezing in the cold where the wind blows backwards, and not being able to use umbrellas because they are useless in the hurricane strength winds, we headed to dinner. and what a dinner.

We stopped at a little Italian restaurant on a corner and it was the most Delicious Pizza I have ever had in my life! I don't know if I am just not used to good food anymore because London doesn't have any, or if I am just more appreciative now that there is good food, or if Amsterdam really just hit it spot on with their food; but Amsterdam=great success for any meal!

So we order some garlic bread and within 1 minute of arriving at the table it was gone. But then the pizza came and it was out of this world. I just don't know how anyone could ever top it. We demolished the food. I am pretty sure the server thought we hadn't eaten in 5 days. But it was just that good!

Then we went and took a little break back at the Hostel before we headed out again. Ended up visiting some "special" coffee shops. Hard not to when they are more common then a Starbucks in New York!

So we stop at one with Bob Marley on the sign. This must be legit. So we just hang out for a little while there before heading off in search of another new adventure. We get a little lost and end up in the Red Light District again where we see a couple deals about to take place. Seems like the place we want to be. But quickly we find ourselves on the main drag again and to better be safe then sorry, end up going to the same bar from the night before. But this time we wanted to try something new.

Absinthe.

Yes we tried it, and I would like to let everyone know there was no "little green man." If you don't know what that means: i.e. mom, dad, & grandma... don't worry about it :)

But Absinthe, it turns out, is not good. I mean really... it is actually quite terrible. Similar to black licorice except worse. But it was really neat because the bartender brought it over and poured it and then went through this whole process to serve it. He began with a sugar cube and put it on a metal slitted spoon. He then set it on fire to carmalize it and let it dissolve in the absinthe. Not exactly sure why he did this, but it was really fun to watch regardless.

So yes within one day of being in Amsterdam I did the most typical American things. But you only live once, right?

So after those epic adventures, there is only one thing left to do for Saturday... The HEINEKEN EXPERIENCE(Sorry for the Caps Lock... Trying to make it sound exciting). But it was amazing! If you ever go to Amsterdam, this will easily pay for itself... well ok maybe not for you, but you'll find out shortly how we got our money's worth...

So it begins with the history and a little canvas backdrop where you can have a little photoshoot while everyone else stares impatiently waiting because we are crazy americans. But then you head into the old brewing room where you find the giant vats that were used to brew all the beer and you even get to sample like a "pre-brew" mix of hops and water. Not delicious. At all.

But then you walk past the Heineken horses and get to a sampling room. Everyone gets a beer, and they then inform you of the different and unique qualities to Heineken. And if you were the first to finsih, you get another free beer! Great Motivation!

You then proceed to an area where you get on a motion simulator ride where you are "brewed." This was cute... the ground would shake and twist and turn you while you would get squirted with water and get air blown at you, and it was actually a fun little experience.

Following that was an area where you could make your own personal music video, but it is all in Dutch... (It's on my email if anyone is just dying to see how talented we are at singing in dutch). And following that you go into a personal little capsule where you can watch a history of Heineken commercials. I am not kidding, this was a playground for grown ups!

Goodness - there was just so much to do and see and play with!

and at the end you get two free beers, cold or Extra Cold. Amazing because it is just a giant bar where everyone is hanging out. And soon a group of men come up to us. Turns out they speak very little english. They are from Italy and their names consist of Chilo 1, Chilo 2, Luca, Jen (but not like the girl as he pointed out), and Salvadore.

One of their first lines to me was, "I am a playgirl. Luca is playgirl (as he pointed to himself)" Unreal. But it was ok because they got extra free tabs for more free beer and even the bartender, Vouter, was giving us two for every one. Well seeing it was two o'clock and we had to board a plane soon, we decided it be in our best interest to get out of there before we it was too late.

The Italians didn't enjoy this because they were sad to see us go... Luca goes "But I love she! (pointing at me)" while TK was overwhelmed by Chilo and Jen trying to take seductive pictures with her. Very entertaining to say the least. And this is how we definately got our money's worth for the experience! So fun!

And to top off our day headed off to the most American Restaurant of them all, The Hard Rock Cafe, where again the meal was so amazing!

Well, it eventually became the time we had to leave and we illegaly boarded the tram with more people then accounted for in the tickets. Whoops. But no worries, we made it to the station and airport to find our flight was delayed.... again. Thanks a lot easyjet. you suck at life. Especially since they yelled at us first for having a bag and a purse, and then I was stuck next to a man who snored the whole time when he wasn't trying to explain to me how he works with "old people." All this while a bunch of rowdy kids were screaming and yelling the whole flight. Turns out they also had to take the 1 1/2 hour bus ride with us to our tube station, where they proceeded to blast their music.

Mind you the bus was overfilled and I got the last available seat. No bueno. We later got kicked off the bus for accidentaly getting off at the wrong stop and then not being allowed back on. Fortunately we found a tube station, but half the lines were down. Eventually we finally made it home...

But there it is. An amazing experience to say the least. A couple things went awry here and there, but regardless I am in Love. Amsterdam is amazing. It is beautiful, there is an endless amount of things to do and see, the people are more then friendly, and the food is to die for.

I miss it already, but am looking forward to my weekend getaway in France this coming week, and then a visit from my sister!

Vaarwel for now!