We headed to Amsterdam Thursday and flew out from Milan. We walked a mile to the train station, took an hour and forty-five minute train ride to Milan, took a 30 minute bus ride to the airport, took an hour and a half flight to Amsterdam, and a 30 minute train ride into the city center. It was a lot of traveling but that is all part of the adventure. I went to Amsterdam with my friends Danielle and Danielle, who both go to CU, and my friend Annie and Emily who go to Northwestern. When we booked our flight Danielle and Danielle accidently booked the morning flight because they got confused with military time so they were there a whole day ahead of us.
When we finally arrived to our hostel, Danielle and Danielle were ready to show us around. Well it turns out that they had just gone on a tour of The Red Light District and we happened to be staying right in the Red Light District so we headed out to see it all. (Diana, maybe don't read this next sentence to Annelies and Ava.) We roamed the allies looking at prostitutes in little rooms trying to get men to come in for some sexual pleasure. We were pretty much the only girls out at 11:30 at night. We also walked by all of the coffee shops that sold weed like they sell coffee. Considering this was the first thing I saw of Amsterdam, I was pretty much in culture shock. I felt like I was at the zoo going to look at the pandas or tigers or something but instead I was looking at these women and a few transvestites as well. I went to bed wondering where the heck I was and what planet I had just landed on.
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| Our amazing hostel! |
Friday morning, Emily and I woke up early so we decided to go see the other parts of the city while we waited for the other girls to wake up. Now that I was seeing it in daylight and not only The Red Light District, I began to realize what a cool and beautiful town I was in. Once the other girls woke up we headed to The Anne Frank House. I had been told by other people that it wasn't very cool or worth seeing, so I didn't know what to expect. Well trust me, it was worth seeing. Going to this house was extremely impactful. I got chills walking through it thinking of the history and the horror that this house had seen. Anne Frank's journal entries were also put up about different parts of the house and what they were doing. If you are ever in Amsterdam this is worth going to.
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| Anne Frank House |
After this sad start to the morning we needed something to cheer us up, and what could be better than pancakes!! Amsterdam has amazing pancakes, but they are more like crepes and you can get savory or sweet ones. I got a pancakes with cream cheese, lox, and tomatoes on it. It was unbelievable! After that someone thought that we should go try french fries, cause we hadn't already eaten enough for lunch. Amsterdam is known for there french fries so those were also amazing. We finished our afternoon by roaming around The Red Light District again, and going for a walk by the water. My hostel was really fun because in order to get to the hostel, you had to go through a bar, and we got discounts at this bar so we ate dinner and spent our night there. It was very convenient.
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| Now that is a Pancake. |
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| Amazing French Fries |
The next morning we slept in and then headed to the Heineken Experience! I was told to do this by people from my program that had been to Amsterdam so we decided to give it a try. It was only 15 euro for the whole experience, plus 2 beers! Pretty good deal if you ask me. We were able to see the history of Heineken and learn how it is made. Then, we go to go into their brewing room. After that we entered a room only to find a "Be the Beer Ride!" What you did was stand on a moving platform and watch how beer was made. It was sort of like "Honey I Shrunk the Audience" for adults. We got sprayed by water and bubbles and felt heat lamps. It was a fun way to appreciate how beer is made. When we got off the ride we did "beer tasting" which was very similar to wine tasting. We had to swirl and smell the beer and then take a big gulp. It tasted like every other beer to me though, so it didn't have the same effect as wine tasting does. When we left that room we got to go into a "bar" and get our beer and hangout. This was an extremely fun experience.
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| Heineken Experience |
After, that we went to the big I AMsterdam sign and got our pictures there and ate lunch. We decided to head back to our hostel because a few girls wanted to take a nap. My friend Danielle and I didn't want to nap and saw a movie theatre on the walk back. In Amsterdam, pretty much everyone speaks english because dutch is becoming extinct. So, the movies that were out were all of the ones we have in the movie theatres in the United States and they were in English so we saw "No Strings Attached." It was funny because we got a seat assignment in the movie theatre. I love going to movies at home so it was nice to get a little taste of the United States since I have officially been out of the country for 7 weeks. We finished off the night by getting food from a Wok place! Stir-fried vegetables and tofu! I miss my healthy food :)
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| I AMsterdam in the rain |
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| Dutch Movie Theatre |
I don't know if Amsterdam is a place I will ever go on vacation to later in life, so I am so glad that I was given an opportunity to see it and experience it!
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