Day 1: 5/18/2013

Well to all those who thought I wouldn’t survive… HA! I did. After getting no sleep on the plane and traveling for what seemed forever, Magdalena and I finally made it to Amsterdam. We took a train from the airport to the city. At first, I thought Amsterdam looked pretty similar to the US… then I saw all the weed gardens and the whore houses… just kidding! Once we got to the city however, I definitely knew I wasn’t in good ole’ Minnesota anymore. We arrived at the central station, and it was MASS CHOAS! Mainly it was just mass chaos for me because I was “that girl” that was lugging around 2 suitcases and 2 big purses. As hard as it is to admit… my sister and mother was right about my over packing problems. Along with my packing problems, my “klutziness” came out as well. While on the train, I had the unexpected difficulty of maintain my luggage and myself. (There weren’t any seats available so I had to stand) Needless to say, I fell on an Asian girl multiple times. To my surprise however she was very nice and kind, much like the majority of the Dutch people. On the plane from Dublin to Amsterdam, I spoke with a Dutch man. He was very nice and offered a lot of tips and advice. We became friendly enough where he showed me pictured of his kids, and I showed him pictures of my dogs. (My dogs were cuter… just kidding but not actually) I also saw the Dutch kindness when the tram door proceeded to close on me while half of me and my luggage were outside and half was still inside the tram. He graciously helped me get my luggage out of the tram and onto the street where we then walked to our hotel. We stayed at the Ostterpark hotel, a little hole in the wall hostel. Luckily we were able to get a double room with our own shower sink and toilet. It was no 5 star hotel, but as broke college student it worked fabulously.

While the luggage and the klutziness caused a few issues for me, I was so mesmerized by the beauty of Amsterdam that it really didn’t matter. I first got a taste of this when we arrived at the central train station. This is located in the central part of the city and the architecture of the central station and other buildings were incredible. Every road was cobblestone and every building was different with historic sculptures, designs and moldings. The buildings were back-to-back lined up next to each other. Shops, cafes, and restaurants were on the first floor of the buildings with doors opened trying to get as much business as they could. These were modern day touristy things for the most part such as souvenir restaurants, small museums, shops, restaurants, and arcades (aka casino). It was extremely busy with people going in and out of places and trying to get from one place to another. Amongst all the craziness of scattered people one could still see and feel the presence of the historic beauty of Amsterdam.

I was also fortunate because my hostel was located right in front of a beautiful park called ossterpark. I walked around it the first night after taking a nap. (We were pretty tired and jetlag so we took a nap) It was a great little park with paved sidewalks for runners, walkers, and for those who just wanted to see what it was about like me. There was a lake in the middle surrounded by vivacious greenery of trees, plants, grass and flowers. It was also interesting to see the people who were hanging around the park. I would describe these people as hippies or gypsies, along with more typical park “goers” such as families and runners.  After walking around for a bit, I headed back to the hostel and went to bed.

Day 2-3: 5/19/2013-5/20/2013

We woke up a little later than expected, but quickly got ready and headed out for the day! We first went back to the central train station to buy our train tickets to Paris for the morning of Wednesday the 22nd. This was a bit of a process as I did not bring enough money and unlike the Dutch that we met on the trams and streets, the workers were not too pleasant and helpful. I ended up having to borrow a few euros from Magdalena and bought my train ticket. I ended up finding an ATM and was able to withdraw some money. Finally having money, we decided we needed food and went to a little café. We ate Panini’s and I had my first Netherland beer called Amstel. We were conveniently located to our first destination, the Niewe Kerk (New Church). This is a church that informs about The Netherlands governmental history ranging from the 1600 monarchy to the newly crowned king and queen. There was an extremely large beautiful organ and stained glass window. The inside also consisted of several sculptures and different displays ranging from clothing items of each king or queen to paintings and important historical documents. We then went to the Kings palace which was also conveniently located in the Dam Square (one of the most well-known and popular squares). We mainly just looked at the architecture, murals, sculptures and rooms. There were several bedrooms, dining rooms, offices, and other random rooms on display. They showed what the rooms once looked like and they were all very eloquent and had a lot of rich colors of red and gold and had several large murals and paintings. We then went and looked at the national monument which was just outside the king’s palace in the dam square. This monument is dedicated to those that were lost during WWII. It was a very cool tall oddly shaped monument. We quickly looked at this and then headed over to the red light district to find a museum called the ons lieve heer op solder, or the hidden museum. When we were walking there I didn’t notice anything too crazy about this area other than there were a lot more “Koffie shops” than normal. (The koffie shops are where people go to legally smoke weed... I didn’t bother seeing if I could get my skinny vanilla latte there! We easily found the museum and learned that the building was once a hidden church for Protestants because the practice of their religion was banned. This was one of my favorites of the day. We then went to look at another church called old church.  This was also in the red light district and we unfortunately didn’t make it on time, so we decided to walk around and look from the outside. We read in a book that this church was the only church in the world surrounded by whore houses. As we were around the back alleys I didn’t notice anything but then I saw them. The “escorts” as they like to call themselves were stand in display windows kind of like mannequins except they were in lingerie and would take you in back room if you paid. It was a sight I will always remember and I hope to not see something like that again. After this unforgettable sight we went and checked out Amsterdam’s University. It’s called Amsterdam Van University and has a business school and several others as well. Being the studious people that we are we left rather quickly and went to spuit which is another popular square. Since we were there on a Sunday, they had a section of tents set up with art sales. We walked through it and looked at the art. Following spuit we walked along the beautiful canals and then headed home to rest. Magdalena had a friend studying in Amsterdam so we met up with him. He showed us around a little and we ended up having a relaxing night sharing a bottle of wine and just talking.

Unfortunately, Magdalena and I somehow managed to wake up even later than the day before which set us back more than expected. The weather was rainy and cold, fortunately I brought my super cute bright pink raincoat. While I may get many compliments back home, I pretty much got stared at by the Europeans and managed to somehow look even more American than I already did. We first went to Wester kerk (western church) which is the tallest church in Amsterdam. The actual church was closed because of “service” (still not exactly sure why it was closed) but we got to climb the tower which was an awesome experience. We did a guided tour and were informed about the components and history of the church. We got to ring some of the little church bells and see the main massive bell. When we finally reached the top, we went out onto the terrace and experienced a beautiful view of Amsterdam. It was an eerie experience as there was a lot of fog from the rain, but none the less it was still mystifying and beautiful. This was another one of my favorites... and I also got quite the work out from all the climbing of the stairs. We then grabbed some lunch at a local café by the western church. I got a traditional Dutch meatball dish that was very good. Whenever I would ask about the Dutch food, often the people would say that it’s not very good; however I would definitely disagree with them based on my meal! After the west church we went to the Van Gogh Museum. While walking there we accidently ran into the “I am Amsterdam sign”. We were planning on going to this but couldn’t find where it was so we were pleasantly surprised with this accidental find. We snapped a few pictures and then headed to the Van Gogh Museum. It was very crowded but really interesting to see all of Van Gogh’s works and learn about his life as well. We decided to head home after this and rest and get ready for the night.

We had a big night planned considering we were going on a pub crawl called “The ultimate party”. We met our “guide”. He wasn’t a typical guide considering he was pouring us shots and taking shots with us, but he got us to the bars which was all we needed from him. Other than drinking, I was quite the socialite and made friends with people from Australia, Canada, the U.S., and England, and Sweden. I also met some of the locals at a few of the bars. I found it very easy to make friends when we all have a common goal of having a “few” drinks.

Day 4: 5/21/2013

Unlike the other days, we actually woke up early today. We wanted to get up early to beat the line at the Anne Frank house. We got there around 9 and still had to wait in the line for about 30 minutes. Again it was cold and rainy, and it was pretty miserable to wait in line, but the wait was well worth it. As expected the Anne Frank House was as incredible as one would assume. Having read The Anne Frank Diary, I already had an understanding of what Anne and her family had gone through. However, by going through the secret annex my perspective became much clearer as to what they really had to go through. It was an emotional inspirational experience and by far the best part of my trip to Amsterdam. We grabbed lunch at the Anne Frank Café and decided to go back to the hostel and take a nap considering we didn’t sleep all that much because of the pub crawl.

After the nap, we to the central area and went on an hour long boat excursion. We saw a lot of areas in Amsterdam that we had never seen before and saw a lot of other unique structures. We went through a more business working area, an area full of a factory buildings, and upper class neighborhood. We saw where the mayor of Amsterdam lived which was very cool. He obviously lived in a very nice looking elaborate building in an upper class area. After the canal tour, we decided to get dinner. We wanted to go to a little bit of a nicer dinner since it was our last night. Magdalena had read about a restaurant (I’m not even going to try spelling it because I would butcher it too much) so we went there. It was an Indonesian restaurant and we got a meal where we got to taste a little bit of everything. There were different types of chicken, pork, veal, green beans, eggs, salad, rice and fried bananas for dessert. I wasn’t brave enough to try everything, but overall it was very delicious! After a nice long dinner we went back to our hostel and packed up and prepared for our trek to Paris!