AMSTERDAM WEEKEND!!!

AMSTERDAM

Favorite picture of the trip!

Me in some GIANT Dutch wooden shoes!

Sorry for those not so interested in this picture...but I had to post it! It IS Amsterdam!

Thursday, October 3rd
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I woke up and spent the whole first half of the day showering and packing and charging everything (like my camera, mobile and Ipod). Ally and I thought that we gave ourselves plenty of time to take the taxi to the bus stop, then enough time for the bus to get to the airport in time to get on the plane, but we ran late. Even though we ended up rushing everywhere  we did make it so that's good!

The flight was really not bad at all, only was about an hour and fifteen minutes flight so that was nice. The company that we came through (easy jet) we found out does not give you exact seats so even though Ally and I didn't book our flights together we still were able to sit together. I'm quite sad though, I realized much too late that I left my scarf on the plane. :( I have been seeing tons of really cute scarfs but haven't bought one cause I knew I really didn't need one but now I do so I might start looking around for one that's a good price!

When we got into the Amsterdam airport it was insane! I feel like it was definitely the biggest airport I think I've been in. There's practically an entire huge mall in it! It took us quite a bit to figure out where to go to get to our hostel but we eventually figured it out. We did have directions from Andy (our tour guide guy) so that really helped. We had to take the train from the airport to Amsterdam Central Station (which cost 4.20 and made me giggle since we're in A'dam) and then he gave us walking directions from the station to our Hostel, The Bulldog.

When we got to the hostel we net our roommates. There are 10 beds in our room (5 bunks) but we only have 6 people staying in here and we're all here through the WSA tour, 5 girls and 1 guy. We all went to the bar that our hostel gave us a voucher to so that we used them before we lost them.

Then, we went and found food which was just a little burger place which was good. Next, we did what people from Ireland do best and ran into an Irish pub in Amsterdam haha! We weren't trying to but it just happened to be a place we found with a big enough table for our group. Oh, by the way, the three other girls, Liz, Jill and Margo are studying in Limerick, Ireland and are also from IFSA! The guy, Derrick, is studying in Rome. When we were at the pub we were just talking about different things and since Ally and I got here a little later than everyone else they had already met Andy Steves our guide. Derrick mentioned that his dad is kinda famous and I said who is he?? HIS DAD IS FREAKING RICK STEVES!!! I have now decided there is no way this tour CAN'T be amazing.

The city is gorgeous of the little I've seen. Beautiful buildings, canals with gondolas and swans. Ahhh...just don't take too deep a breath and your fine. I've never smoked pot so the smell is something I am not used to nor do I like and you smell it EVERYWHERE, but that's ok. Probably a good reason I've smelled so much of it is because our hostel is smack dab in the center of the red light districst. I thought we would just be touring it tomorrow night...nope...we're living it. In the small block we walked for food and such every other window is a restaurant, then a "coffee shop" (where you buy/smoke weed) and then windows lit up with red lights with girls standing right in them in revealing underwear showing off what they have to offer. A little uncomfortable but that's ok.

Our hostel is quite nice. The shower is similar to "the chokey" in Matilda but I think the bed is the most comfortable thing I've ever laid on! The pillow is a bit reminiscent of cottage cheese though haha.

Time for sleep though. Meeting up with Andy at 10am for day one of adventures!!!

Friday, October 4th
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This morning we all just woke up in pretty much enough time to stick some clothes on and go downstairs. The hostel has breakfast for you but you just grab a little baggie with stuff in it. We all met down in the lobby and got introduced to everyone that isn't in our hostel room. With Andy there is a total of 11 of us but apparently tonight we will have our hostel room filled so there are 4 more people (they missed their Thursday flight).

When we got down to the lobby Andy talked about the WSA company and about our weekend ahead of us while we had our breakfasts. The baggies had a croissant and a yogurt in them. Andy also passed our maps of the city to us and the back has phrases translated from English to Dutch. At the top it says "some useful phrases" so you would think they'd be helpful like, "Where is the bathroom" type of stuff. Not in A'dam! We can now say things like, "I'm on mushrooms," "May I smoke a joint?" "Where are my clogs? and "Marry me."After everyone finished we headed out to check out A'dam. First of all, the Dutch are gorgeous. They are all tall, thin and beautiful, men and women. They are all very healthy and that could be easily explained by the crazy amount of biking they do here. While we were walking around Andy kept pointing different interesting things out and telling us interesting facts and one of them was that there are the same number of bikes in A'dam as there are people! My Dad should live here (he loves riding his bike). The bikes have the right of way to both cars and pedestrians and I don't think there is a street in this town that doesn't have a bike lane.

The first place we went today was the Anne Frank Museum which is across town so we got to see quite a bit of A'dam on the way as we walked. We stopped into this little cheese shop and had some samples...YUM. It was incredible to go through this museum as it is inside of the actual house and rooms they hid out in through the holocaust. There are even the lines drawn on a wall measuring the heights of Anne and her sister and the posters Anne plastered on the walls to make it less gloomy are still up. Incredible.

After we went through the museum it was time for lunch! We went to this amazing pancake house and it was so delicious! For the Dutch pancakes are more of a lunch or dinner item that tend to be served with meats and cheeses on them. I ended up just ordering the plain pancake with powdered sugar and syrup and it was so filling! The syrup was a bit different but a different different than the syrup in Ireland haha. This syrup tasted more like molasses a bit and had more of that consistency too. But it still hit the spot!

After the lunch was supposed to be our free time to roam wherever we wanted, but Andy was planning on going to a tour of a diamond company to see how diamonds are shaped and whatnot so we all went along. On the walk there we passed a "smart shop" so we stopped in for a look. These are shops where you can buy everything else other than pot so things like mushrooms and truffles and hash brownies. They had lots of forms of it too! Some of the people in our group bought the weed lollipops but the end result the said was lame. They didn't taste good or do anything for them. So now we know what all these different shops are! Coffee shops are where you buy/smoke weed, smart shops are everything else and if you actually want COFFEE you look for a 'cafe.'

On to the diamond company. We got an explanation as to how they shape the diamonds and got to watch some people actually doing it. Then, we got to try on jewelry and look around. Not that long of a tour but hey, I got to wear a like 12,000 euro ring, that'll probably never happen again haha.

Then after the diamond company we got our free time. The others had finally arrived here so Andy went back to the hostel to pick them up and take them to the Anne Frank house and Ally and I went shopping (of course). We went to a couple stores but after a bit our feet were so tired from our whole day of walking we decided to come back to the hostel and rest a little before meeting back up with the group at 6:45pm. About an hour of breaktime. I did get a sweater when we were shopping I like a lot and it was only 15 euro. I will wear it tomorrow so everyone can see!! So we're just resting in the hostel right now and have about 20 minutes until we're meeting up with the group in the lobby. Andy is taking us on a tour of the red light district. I will have more to right about probably when we get back.

Just got back from the tour and it was pretty interesting. We started out just walking the streets and since it's a friday night the girls were mostly really busy so the shades were closed. The guys in our group were very disappointed haha. But we walked around and through some very small very shady ally's. Every once in a while we'd come by a statue or building that Andy had fun facts to tell us. Then, he found us a peep show and some of the group went in. You paid 2 euro and apparently got to watch a girl for 2 minutes. Not sure what she did...but the guys were blushing when they came out. Then Andy took us to the "blue light district" which was interesting to say the least. That is the section where the light up windows were blue and is where the guys dressed up as girls are... Andy explained the reason it's the RED light district and it made a lot of sense, yellow light would make you look dirty, green or blue would make you look sick, white would show all your imperfections but red is an attracting color.

After we got done walking all over Andy told us he knew of a really good Thai place and so some people in the group chose to go elsewhere but I'm a fan of Thai so I went along. It was a very small restaurant and we had a group of 7 so we couldn't all sit together. My table was Andy, Ally and me which worked out well. We each ordered a different entree and shared. I ordered white rice and chicken with garlic and white pepper in some type of sauce. Ally ordered pad thai and fried rice. Andy ordered white rice and green curry chicken as hot as you could get it. For a Thai restaurant I thought it was a wimpy heat because I was still able to enjoy it. I do love spicy but I do hit a point usually where it is too spicy and this wasn't. Andy did find a pepper in it that when he ate he looked a little in pain haha. But all in all wonderful food!

We headed back to the hostel for about half an hour before heading out again. Chet came back to our room to hang out after he went back to his to realize two of his hostel roommates were going at it...how awkward!! Unfortunate for Chet, he didn't end up in a room with only WSA students. I'd say if you want to do that, stay in a place you don't share a room with others!

Then, we went to go on a pub crawl but started at the first and no one ended up going. The others decided to go somewhere else and Ally and I just stayed there. We decided it was already really late and our feet were going to have to make it through a ton of walking for the next two days so we opted out and settled down for a hot chocolate and nice little chat before heading back. It was probably the best hot chocolate I've ever had!

Oh, Andy did tell us the history of our hostel. It fills the whole block on this side of the canal and it used to be owned by the now owners dad and he had the windows for rent to the prostitutes. When he died and passed it down to his son, the now owner, he didn't want to be in that industry so he turned the whole strip into the Bulldog which has the Bulldog Coffee Shop, the lounge and hostel, the bar and the gift shop. It's frustrating because I've learned so much interesting stuff I know I've got to be forgetting to tell you half of it!

Tomorrow what I know of so far is that we are going to the Van Gogh Museum, stop for photos at the 'I Amsterdam' sculpture, go to the Albert Cuyp Market and for our cultural dinner with WSA that Andy said is the best of real Dutch food you'll get!

Saturday, October 5th
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This morning it was soooo hard for me to force myself out of bed! The first night I was comfortable (because these beds are amazing) but I never got into a deep sleep and woke up tons of times. Last night I passed out hard so I was not ready to move when it was time. Then, when I did get out of bed I felt how mad my feet were at me from the day before haha.

We all met up in the lobby to snack on our breakfast (same thing as yesterday) and chat about what the plans were for the day. A ton of today was also a TON of walking around. The first place we hit was the Van Gogh museum and it took a very long time to get there but was a great walk as this is an incredibly beautiful city and Andy also filled it with great interesting facts as we went along, he really does know his stuff!

On the way we found this really cute little shop so we went in and looked around, I also made a purchase! All of the charm bracelet charms I've been scoping out for price comparisons always seemed to be about 10-15 euro, this place had its silver charms for 5 so I got a cute little silver dutch shoe.

We kept walking on and found a Starbucks which everyone really seemed to be needing so we stopped in to get some drinks. I didn't get one but I did get a cookie sample that was being passed out! We got to the Van Gogh Museum at 11:45 so it probably took us, taking out time for the shop and Starbucks, an hour to walk from the hostel to the museum. Which was fine because everything we did today was on that side of town so it wasn't like we continuously walked back and forth. It's crazy how the area we were in today and the area we are staying in can be the same town, such different atmospheres!

Oh! When we were walking Andy told us another fact about where we are staying since we went past another Bulldog Coffee Shop. Before pot was not criminalized people didn't care, especially the owner of the Bulldog. He would sell for a couple days until the cops found out then they'd take him to jail for a couple days until he got out and would go right back to selling until they heard and would go back to jail a couple more days. This went on until they quit criminalizing marijuana and then the problem was gone. A few years later the police department they always made him serve time in decided they were moving locations so the Bulldog owner bought the building and opened up another shop!

But anyways, Van Gogh. Andy told us to meet him back at the park next to the museum by the sculpture in two hours. Ally and I aren't that big on museums (sorry museum lovers) so we checked everything out pretty quickly, browsed through the gift shop and then left. To fill our time we went in search of an ATM which is harder to find than you might think! We wanted to find one because Andy had mentioned we would be going to a crazy cool flea market for lunch.

When Andy got to the statue he had little treats to hand out to us called stroop waffles....A-MAZ-ING!!! New favorite treat! They are little cookies that are pressed by a small waffle type thing and taste like cinnamon and sugar gram crackers with some type of caramelized honey on the inside! But anyways, the statue we met up at was the 'I Amsterdam' statue so that we could take pictures with it as a group and by ourselves. We also got to walk through the park which was absolutely beautiful. Andy had sent us an email before the weekend preparing us for "cold and wet" which it has not beed AT ALL. All sun and warmth for us! (Good thing I didn't need that scarf)!

We walked through the park to the flea market for lunch which we had at a Middle Eastern Restaurant called The Bazar (it had a really cool ceiling!). I ended up getting a turkish pizza which is called a Lahmacun and it was pretty much a thicker/doughier version of a wheat tortilla with a chunkier tomato sauce, goat cheese and ground veil that came with a garlic sauce for dipping. I had to get past the fact that it was baby cow but once I did it was delicious!

After lunch we could do whatever we wanted until meeting at the hostel lobby at 5:30pm to go to dinner at 6pm. (I know I haven't gotten there yet but lunch at 2ish and dinner at 6, when they are both big meals are waaaaay too close together!!) So Ally and I decided to check out the flea market which was GREAT because I found some great souvenirs for people there! Not saying what or for who though! We went through the flea market and had some fresh squeezed juice AND GOT SOME STROOP WAFFLES. We started walking back towards the hostel a bit after 3:30 and were going to get back there, buy some cheap bread and sit by the edge of the canal to feed the swans outside our hostel until 5:30. That plan went out the window when we got lost and ended up taking until 5:20 to get back haha. So we got back in perfect time to go out to dinner, which we weren't hungry for at all. That didn't matter though because it was our "authentic dinner" that was included with what we payed for the package tour so we weren't going to miss it!

Dinner was very tasty. First, we had a vegetable soup, next was a big sausage (finally normal sausage!) with mashed potatoes and then the dessert was a very big slice of watermelon. It was all very good and it was funny to look around the table at how incredibly full and tired everyone was and then see all our reactions when someone looked at a clock to see that it was only seven! Tomorrow is Ally's 22nd birthday and I told Andy so the lady at the restaurant brought her watermelon slice with a big candle in it and we all sang.

After dinner we all just headed off to do our own things. Ally and I came back to the hostel to rest our feet and tummies for a bit to hopefully catch a second wind. It's now 8:30 and we want to go out and try one of those pastry places and possibly one more hot chocolate (because it was crazy delicious) before the end of our trip. Can't believe this weekends practically over!

Today was made quite a bit more interesting as various group members through out the day tried shrooms. Pretty funny to watch and laugh at them. Not sure why, but this morning I woke up with absolutely no voice, then it came back after being awake for about an hour and then somewhere between lunch and dinner I lost it again and sound quite ridiculous. No idea why it happened but whatever, Ally told me it sounds raspy and sexy so I'll just go with that answer hahaha.

Alright, so we went out to a pastry shop that we've passed way too many times and had some over prices tasty treats that were completely worth every euro and every calorie! Ally got a chocolate covered waffle that was covered in whipped cream and strawberries and I got a strawberry mouse pie covered in strawberries and to finish there may have been a tiny custard pie with fruit on top. These easily made us just fall more deeply in love with A'dam than we already are. The desserts were too filling though so hot chocolate didn't end up happening but our tummies are very happy! We rested for quite awhile in the room after dinner so now it's just about 10:15 and it looks like we might just be calling it a night...

I believe this is my third time coming back to this notebook to write! We decided we needed to stay up til Ally's birthday so we did manage to get unfull enough to find a bar with hot chocolate. We couldn't remember where exactly the other place was but this place ended up being a close second at the tasteness. We sat with 3 girls from Britain who it was one of their 29th birthdays and they were here to celebrate that. We did some walking around and right at midnight were at the Bulldog bar and I bought us each shots of Malibu to celebrate...HAPPY 22ND ALLY!!! Bedtime!

Sunday, October 6th
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Smooth trip to the Airport, slept the entire flight, smooth trip back to Newtownabby and I'm finally back in my "home." This was Andy's first A'dam tour that he has done with his WSA tours thing and he did a fantastic job! We all had an amazing time!

The gorgeous train station at Amsterdam Central Station.

On the train headed for the airport.

The crazy escalator/moving sidewalk(?) in the A'dam airport.

I took this picture to explain what I've learned from this vacation:

This is a sign that says "Discriminate" crossed out using the triple X sign A'dam is known for. This is why A'dam is amazing. NOT because they don't care if people smoke pot, just that they are unprejudiced about everything. They have apparently never in their history had to deal with a hate crime and can't fathom how people for example in the states have been beaten because of their sexuality. This is one of the most open and accepting places and it goes to show that it works.