Amsterdam!

Thursday 4/2
Our group of 6 (Anna, Rima, Eleanor, Blakeley, Jessica and myself) left drawing early to catch our flight at 7:00pm. The flight was less than two hours but felt like two minutes because I passed out completely for all of it. We took a 20 minute train from the airport to centre city, and then we were there! in the awesomeness of Amsterdam! Our hotel was Called the Heart of Amsterdam, and they certainly weren’t kidding about the name. We wandered around for a little while from the train station, and when we found the hotel we were smack (and I mean smack) in the middle of the red light district. I’m talking brothels and hookers next door, across the street and as far as you could see in pretty much any direction, not to mention sex shops, sex shows, peep shows, porn theatres, “coffee” shops and bars. It was pretty crazy, but we had a fun time walking around and just taking it all in. Terry took us to a coffee shop called the Jolly Joker to try some of the local flavor, then we went to dinner at a little hamburger place that served Obamaburgers. We walked around a little more after that and began to notice that all the bars and coffee shops close before the sex shops and peep shows. Interesting. We headed back to our 007 room in the hotel after that (all of the rooms have a different movie theme, pretty sweet - I’m sleeping under Sean Connery’s head)

Friday 4/3
We woke up to an extensive breakfast in the hotel, from which we also prepared lunch sneakily. Then we checked out and were off to find our next hostel (we booked a different one each night to get the full experience of Amsterdam) We passed the morning shift of the red light district on our way out. The walk took a long while, because we had a fairly large group and some seriously slow walkers (then again I’m a little biased because I walk like a “city girl” as terry says) But we got to Okay Stay eventually and dropped our stuff off. Then it was off to play in the sun!!! we were right across from Vondelpark which was huge and pretty, so Jessica and I started walking through there, taking pictures, envying puppies, climbing trees etc. It was a very nice stroll. After that we perused the shops on Leidseplein Stratte, which were adorable but very expensive. Then we had lunch at a little place with outdoor seating on the canal, and the sun was wonderful and felt amazing. After lunch we went on a hunt for “space cakes” and found some at a coffee shop called “The Rookies” (which we thought was very appropriate.) so we ate those and then rented a paddle boat, or “canal bike” to cruise the canals. Being on the canal was a lot of fun, but paddling always gets tiring after a while and our boat was crazy hard to steer. I had to practically climb on top of the steering stick to keep the thing going straight, and forget it if we had to swerve on-coming boat traffic, we were goners who got honked at big time. (and no it was not because of the space cakes, other people were struggling too) After our hour + of paddling we trekked back to the hostel to meet the others for dinner.

We went to The Bulldog (Amsterdam’s biggest and most renown coffee shop chain) before dinner then around the corner to Ristorante Italiano where I had pasta filled with spinach and ricotta in tomato cream sauce. Stellar. We got some ben and Jerry’s after that and went back to the hostel to get ready for the evening. Unfortunately Jessica, Rima and myself never saw the rest of the evening because we accidentally passed out in our clothes while everyone one else was drinking and getting ready. (we think the space cakes might have kicked in reallllly late.) but it was a busy, fun day, and we were also just really tired.

Saturday 4/4
We woke up Saturday to another big breakfast spread, in cool old part of the hostel. Seeing that they had chocolate sprinkles available I decided to try the traditional Dutch breakfast of hagelslag, which is essentially buttered toast with chocolate sprinkles on top. It was pretty much what you would expect it to be, different, but not bad. After breakfast and another stealthy lunch preparation, we began our trek to our third hostel -Intersail- on a boat! After some fine navigation on my part we arrived on the dock of Christina, where Tony the boat master sent us one dock over to stay on Waterland. Both boats were tiny creaky and cute, and the smell/feel reminded me of Fisher’s Island in Connecticut a little bit. Our rooms were tiny little bunks but I really liked the whole set up, very cool and boaty. We dropped our stuff discussed plans for the day and headed out. We didn’t get far before we ran into Terry and Blakeley, who we had lost to a coffee shop along the way. They were very happy to see us , since they had no clue what or where our hotel was.
Jess and I began exploring and found a flea market on Waterlooplein that Rima had mentioned. We shopped through there for a while. I bought a hippyish shirt and an awesome bicycle bell, jess bought a “leather” jacket for 19 Euro. We stopped in a café/restaurant to get warm (the awesome sunny weather of Friday decided not sleepover.) and eat lunch. (I ate my smuggled lunch from breakfast) we stopped in a little shop next door and I bought some stroopwaffles which are another Dutch specialty consisting of two very thin waffle wafers with some sort of caramel stuff spread in the middle. Very tasty. After that we wandered around some more, came across the botanical gardens, which had sadly just closed, but we peeked in and it looked pretty. We stopped in a spirits shop on our way back to the boat and bought some awesome Spanish wine before meeting the others for dinner. We had a glass of our Rotwein/Leiblich 2007 Vinto Tinto from Valencia then went to “Jasmine Thai Food” for dinner. I had a plate of fried rice for 2.50 Euro and realized it was the cheapest meal I’ve had in Europe outside the Czech Republic (besides my smuggled lunches.) After dinner we played some scrabble and hearts on the boat, then some of us walked over to the red light district to wander around again. A few people decided to catch a sex show for 25 Euro, but I decided it wasn’t for me and headed back to the boat.

Sunday 4/5
Another day another awesome breakfast, this time with fresh fruit. :) We packed up our stuff, bid our captain (I never got his name but he was an interesting fellow) farewell, and walked to the train station to store our luggage in lockers for the day. After that we rented bikes from Orange Bike, and began our leisurely ride through the city. My seat was just about an inch or two too high for me( toes justtt barely touched the ground) so I had trouble stopping throughout the day with out falling over. We rode to terry’s new hostel (he stayed a day later than us) so he could drop his stuff, then to Dam square where we got separated by the crowds. Jess and I continued biking and found ourselves in a pretty little park with tons of daffodils we poked around there for a while, then realized that we were right across the street from the Heineken Brewery. Heineken is evidently a Dutch beer that originated in Amsterdam. Cool! So we went in there, learned about the history of the beer, bottom fermentation, their special ‘A’ yeast strain, and that we were at Stadhouderskade the second brewery established. We ventured into a big room with tanks, where we tasted the wort of the beer, (water and barley) not so tasty. I decided it would be fun to climb in one of the fermentation tanks for a photo (they were fake and empty!) so I did, and managed to be sneaky enough that no one really noticed (not an easy feat for me.) After that Jessica and I got to ‘be the beer” in the Heineken 4-D experience. We traveled through the brewing process and got jostled, sprayed and fanned a lot, but it was cute. After that we did a tasting of two week old Heineken and observed the golden color caused by the barley. Jess and I made a Dutch music video in the next room, which failed to send to our emails :( then we watched funny Heineken commercials from the 50’s, 80’s etc in cool chairs (which I later banged my head on) after that came old posters, videos, advertising history (partnership with James Bond movies) and finally….BEER! We got two big glasses of beer either extra cold or regular, I had one of each then snatched the glasses, as I deemed that they must be included in the 15 Euro entrance fee, as otherwise that fee is pure extortion. We had a swervy bike ride back to the rental place after that. Then popped into a Mexican restaurant called Guadalupe for some soup before our trip home. Train station after that, some minor passport troubles for Blakeley which were luckily resolved, then another unconscious plain ride home. :) awesome weekend!

Lauren