I Amsterdam

I love travelling to Amsterdam -- our flight was only 45 minutes!  If only all flights lasted three-quarters of an hour...

We arrived in Amsterdam around 4:30pm, and so we decided to go exploring as soon as we dropped off our luggage at our hostel, Aviengo. In the town centre near the war monument there was a rather large carnival going on with some pretty sweet rides and games. We, of course, stopped to take pictures of this.  After a bit of walking around, it started to rain, so we decided to go to Madam Tussaud’s wax museum. It was pretty cool – the wax people look so real! I especially loved getting my picture taken with Justin Timberlake, George Clooney, and Johnny Depp (xoxo).

After the wax museum we went to a bar/café called Grasshoppers and had some wine (among other things – I mean, it’s Amsterdam)! On our journey home through the carnival we decided to be adventurous and go on the gigantic swing – basically this swing was like any swing at any amusement park, with a twist: so you sit in a seat and go around in a circle...sounds familiar, right?  Only this one went up up UP super high so that you could see all of Amsterdam from the very top. At first I was freaking out because I’m not a huge fan of heights, but once I settled down, it was pretty amazing. I felt like Peter Pan flying through the sky.

When we got off, on our way back to the hostel, we stopped and got waffles, which was probably the best tasting dessert I’ve ever had in my life. And, since we were being nutritious, we also had some fries (with mayo, of course – to be truly European), which, honestly, were THE BEST fries I have EVER had in my life. Seriously – go to Amsterdam if only for their waffles and French fries.

On the walk back to our hostel we decided to go through the red-light district. THAT was an experience. Just rows and rows (and streets and streets) of red lights framing the windows of women “at work.” It was definitely worth seeing. One street we walked down, though, had hundreds of men (or so it seemed), and no women apart from Cara and I. This was a little discomforting. This was the one and only time on my trip that I felt nervous, and admittedly a little scared. Just hundreds of men staring at these women, and Cara and I trying to weave our way through the crowd. We got out of there ASAP and carried on to our hostel.

On our second day (after a horrible night sleep because of some incredibly rude roommates), we went on the Free Walking Tour. Our tour guide, Ryan, gave us a wonderfully animated tour of Amsterdam, and even expanded our vocabulary (“this is a mysterical place”). We met some pretty fun Canadians, Liam, Molly, and Enyi, and spent the evening with them; we had dinner at a really yummy pasta place called Pizza Pasta Steakhouse, went to the Erotic Museum (WOAH), enjoyed a drink and a “coffee” at St. Christopher’s Coffeeshop - ;) – and went back to our favorite bar, The Grasshopper, to finish off the evening. It was a really fun day.

Day three in Amsterdam involved the Fun Hop-On Hop-Off Van Gogh Canal Cruise. Basically, it is what it says it is: it’s a cruise through a canal on a boat, and it stops at different places and you can hop off (and then hop on) whenever and wherever you want, depending on what you want to see. The Van Gogh part just means that we got our tickets to the Van Gogh museum included in the price. So, obviously, we went to the Van Gogh museum, which was pretty sweet. We also went to the Anne Frank house – informative and depressing all at the same time.

That night for dinner we went to a restaurant called Humphrey’s (named after Humphrey Bogart) – this was one of THE BEST meals I think I’ve EVER had. It was so incredibly good, I can’t even explain it. Just food making love to my mouth. Yup – that good. We spent our last evening – guess where? – in our favorite bar The Grasshopper, with lots of wine for company. It was splendid. Oh – and we had another waffle. Just had to.