Spring Break: Amsterdam! (week 9)

Ashley and I decided to spend the last four days of our Spring Break in Amsterdam. At first, I didn't really know why we didn't give ourselves an extra day in Barcelona, since it felt a bit rushed in only two days, but the weather ended up not being so great by the time we left Barcelona to get to the airport, so it was nice to know we were going to have sunny weather in the 60's once again.

Canal next to our hostel!

We got to Amsterdam on Wednesday afternoon, and had gotten some breakfast on the plane. When we arrived at the airport, we realized we had forgotten to look up how to get to the hostel, but luckily I was at least able to find the street where our hostel was on from my Blackberry. It was on Leidsegracht, though neither of us knew how to pronounce it. We decided to type the street name on our phone and show it to the cab driver. The cab ended up being a little pricy, 40 euro, but we had no other idea of how to get there. Our hostel was the International Budget Hostel, and it was in such a good location. We were close enough to the Anne Frank house, and right near the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum, and also near a bunch of bars and clubs.

For our hostel, we actually booked a room with two other people for the first night, and then we booked our own room for the rest of our stay, just because we felt more comfortable without random people in our room. Our room was on the fourth floor, and we had to walk up the steepest steps ever to get to the top. Our roommates happened to be girls our age who were also studying in Florence. They had already been there a couple of days and had two nights left in Amsterdam. When we got inside, they were napping, and so Ashley and I both showered and took naps too for a little while. They told us about a coffeeshop nearby that we should check out, which we ended up doing. We then went on a "Red Light District Exposed" walking tour at 7, that met by the Centraal Station. The tour was so interesting, and I had no idea what to expect in the Red Light District.

Our tour guide was really funny, and showed us a bunch of things before going towards the district. He showed us a custom condom shop, and then showed us some of the funnier contrasts in the area, such as a Christian hostel that is right in the Red Light District, as well as a Kindergarten. Our tour guide told us that we were not allowed to take pictures of the girls in the windows because they will come out and smash your camera, or even throw cups of pee at you. Therefore, my only picture of the Red Light District at night is a bit blurry and from a distance right before we entered and saw all the girls. He also told us all about how prostitution became legalized and gave us all this information about how the girls have to rent the windows and how the prices range depending on location and size. Apparently the area is one of the safest, since there are a lot of policemen who patrol the area. It was so surreal to walk down the streets lined with girls, and it was even weirder to watch some of the men go and talk to them. We walked down this one street called the "Elite Street," which was also the skinniest street, where the "best" girls stood. We were also told about some of famous prostitutes, such as the oldest one, who's twin used to be one too. Our tour guide told us how they once experimented to see if they could get women to pay for sex if they had male prostitutes, but the mission failed since they did not want the media to watch... but before it actually stopped, about 6 women actually did go and pay.

During one point of the tour, we stopped in front of this two minute Peep Show, and our tour guide suggested we all give it a try. He said it was two euro and you can go with a friend. Ashley and I weren't going to do it at first till we realized our whole tour group entered the area to give it a try. We were so awkward about it at first, and it was very weird, but it was interesting to see.

The tour lasted an hour and a half, and it had gotten a bit chillier, so after the tour we decided to head back to our hostel instead of walking around a bit more. We bought a pasta salad type thing in the grocery store and some wine, and ate in the hostel. Our roommates had gone to get dinner with some friends they knew, and Ashley and I decided to go see if Katie, Margo, and Meghan were still in Amsterdam since we overlapped on their Bus2Alps trip. We ended up meeting them by their hostel, which was on Warmoesstraat, right in the middle of the Red Light District. They ended up going to a bar, and Ashley and I ended up going to Hunters, but then the rest of them met us there. We ended up just going back to the hostel after since I was really sleepy, and as we were trying to find our way back, a man walking his dog started talking to us. I was weirded out but he ended up giving us helpful advice before parting, which was to follow the tram tracks back toward our hostel. It was funny because I was really good with directions during the daytime, but at night, Amsterdam just seemed so different to me and it was Ashley who had the better sense of direction every night.

Just a pretty picture of Amsterdam on our tour.

On Thursday we ate breakfast, went to the same coffeeshop we did the day before, and then went to Dam Square at 4 pm to go on the Famous Coffeeshops tour. Once again, the tour was very interesting and we learned all about the history of marijuana in Amsterdam. After the tour, which only included us and another couple, our tour guide gave us suggestions of places to go to, and so we checked another one out. Afterwards, we tried to find the Van Gogh museum, but ended up running into the IAMSTERDAM sign and took pictures on that. We ended up not going into the museum, but just sat on the field near there and then got a waffle, which was AMAZING!

Waffle with sugar, chocolate syrup, and ice-cream.

After eating, we sat on the field again and relaxed, and eventually headed back towards the hostel, where we found a Wok to Walk and got dinner there. We had mentioned to our roommates that we were interested in going to Casa Rosso, and they were too since it was their last night. We had ended up in the room right across from theirs when we changed rooms that morning, and we all got ready and went out. Casa Rosso was very interesting and weird and funny and different all at the same time, but I'm glad I experienced it. Before heading back for the night, Ashley and I decided to check out a bar near our hostel. It was pretty fun, and ended up being more like a club than a bar... we walked outside and ended up going to another one before going to sleep.

The next morning, we woke up early to get lunch before going to the Anne Frank house. It was very interesting, and we each had a self guided pamphlet that explained each room. I ended up getting pretty emotional, especially when Otto Frank was talking in one of the videos. Afterwards, we went to Grey Area, one of the coffeeshops our tour guide recommended. Afterwards, we went back to the field by the Van Gogh museum and hung out there a bit before going inside. It was really cool seeing all his paintings, and there were actually other artist's work that was there too. We stayed there for a few hours before getting dinner at Wok to Walk (of course). We decided to take a quick nap at 8 before trying to go out to a club, but the next thing we knew, it was midnight! We both decided we might as well continue sleeping, so that's what we ended up doing.

On Saturday, our last day, we woke up early once again to do some shopping. I had bought a chocolate covered waffle the day before and ate that for breakfast, so we just found somewhere for Ashley to eat before wandering around the shops in Dam Square. For some reason, I had a really big headache, and I thought it had to do with the fact that we slept for so long. I took some advil and began to feel a bit better. After shopping around, we went to the Hill Street Blues coffeeshop, where we were told Eminem had been to. We then went to the Zoo which was pretty nice. I ended up taking sooo many pictures of the animals for some reason. Later, we drank some wine and had "coffee" before going to a club called Milken Weg, which we think might have had a lot of gay people there. It was so much fun and the music was different; not just popular music. We ended up staying there for a while and then realized we should go since it was daylight savings time and already became 3 am. We also had to wake up at 6 am to begin our commute back to Florence, so we pretty much got 2-3 hours of sleep.

We woke up already packed, and got a cab to Centraal Station, waited an hour for a 2 and a half hour train ride to Maastricht, where we then took a cab to the airport and finally got on a plane to Pisa, then took that bus to the Florence train station, and finallyyy got back home around dinnertime. Longest commute ever, and I didn't think it would ever be over. It was funny because this really weird group of Italian teens with all these body piercings were with us the whole time because they were going back to Florence the exact same way.

Overall, I really enjoyed our Spring Break, and I'm also extremely glad that the next plane I have to go on is the plane to take me back home, since the rest of our trips are on buses.