Amsterdam!-Stop #3

After a combined twenty-two hours on the bus and 6 days later we arrive around 6 am in the morning to the little town of Amsterdam! We arrive and it is still pitch black so we decide to get a couple good hours in and sleep before the walking tour at 11. This city is the most wonderful, incredible, humble little town that I have ever experienced! The city was definitely my favorite of the trip with its idealistic brick houses lined up against the rivers edge and the small town feel. I instantly fell in love with this place! I first day we spent wondering around the city getting lost. Although it has the feel of being small Amsterdam is quite large. One of the most incredible museums I have ever visited was the Van Gogh museum! Here were housed many of the famous pieces of artwork done by Van Gogh himself!

This night we once again did the pub-crawl. Hahaha (as you can see we have a reoccurring theme) I was soo tired this night and almost thought we had gotten out of this one until we got a call from Chelsea saying get ready were going, I looked at the clock….it was 8:20 and we had to be at the meeting place by 8:30. To say the least we made it with seconds to spare. Although it was exactly what I did not want to do that night I decided that since I was out I was going to make the best of it. This ended up being my favorite one! We met some really nice people and the places we were taken were soo fun some dancing, some just hanging out, I liked how it was always mixed up!

The next morning we headed off to the Anne Frank house. Luckily we arrived early so we were able to walk right it. It was such a crazy and surreal experience to get to walk through the house in which she lived and hid out in for so long! It was definitely a touching and memorable experience that I suggest to anyone who visits the city! Also on display was her actual diary. It was interesting to read pages from it; you would be amazed by how mature she was for only being a little girl! Next on the list of activities was lunch and a little souvenir shopping! After eating junk on the road at very bus stop possible we were all craving just a little bit of healthy! We stumbled upon this little café that served up homemade sandwiches, just what we were all craving!! I got the chicken club that had…AVOCADO!!! (this is the first avocado I have seen since in Europe and boy was it exciting!)

After sandwiches we were onto shopping, this I have to say is where I got some of the best souvenirs. Cheese is a big part of Amsterdam so there was cheese stores everywhere! On our tour the previous day the guy had stopped at one place in particular he said was his favorite. We decided to venture back the next day to see just what the buzz was about! I think we stumbled into heaven! As you walking in you are faced with at least 12 different kinds of cheeses and the best part you were allowed to try them all as many times as you wanted! Hahaha you can only imagine how we got our moneys worth of tasters. After debating back and forth on my favorite I decided this would be a great little souvenir to bring home to the fam, so get excited because this is the world’s best cheese! (and it’s from miles away and that always makes it better right?) After picking up a couple more take homes we headed to the Heineken Factory! (we were in for a treat!)

This place felt like you had walked into a miniature Disneyland, consisting of rides, movies, interactive games, and trivia’s! I thought that it was such a fun and unique experience. We got to see the whole process of how the beer is made and I have to say there is much more to a beer than I thought! During trivia yours truly won a free drink! The lady asked what is the German word for cheers and I shouted PRAST! Bam beer for me! Hahaha oh its good to be smart! We headed back to the hostel, but before getting back in we ran across a gourmet bakery shop, how could we resist? As we entered the smell of waffles caramel and chocolate filled the air! Christine, Kaitlin and I decided to go big or go home and got one of the best things ever to come to me…a homemade waffle, a scoop of gelato on top, ad drizzled hot fudge! The stomachache I had for hours after was SO worth it!

We decided to take it easy and stayed in for the night to get some good rest before heading off to final stop Paris! We sat around and kind of chatted with others from the program in the lobby of the hostel before heading to bed. Only a short sleep and 5 hours on a bus to Pari!