No words can describe Amsterdam...

I know this is a bit overdue, but it's not exactly my fault. Well, it kind of is...but not really. I'm trying to get A's in my classes, which require a good deal of work, so that's kind of trumped the updating-my-blog-with-super-cool-stories attitude. Alright, Mom?


So last weekend, a eight of us from our study abroad class decided to go to Amsterdam. Let me just preface this by saying that after the stories I have heard about Amsterdam prior to going, I was a bit nervous AND we were staying in a hostel--ummm, don't watch the movie (apparently)--but you'll see that everything works out fine and dandy in the end.


I guess I'll begin with Thursday evening, when we left to get on the train and head towards Amsterdam.  Now, we get out of class at 5 in the afternoon/evening and we originally thought we could make the 6:22 train, however, we don't really get back to the Citadines (where we're staying) until 5:20/5:30ish AND there were 5 girls going...thus, we made our new goal to be the 7:22 train so we could grab a snack, freshen up, finish packing our clothes so we wouldn't forget anything, etc. But lo and behold the boys, specifically Dan, were gung-ho about getting on that 6:22 train so we get a call saying that the other girls were ready and that we needed to hurry because we were apparently leaving in 5 minutes. (Side note: the other girls got the same phone call saying that  we were ready and they needed to hurry. Boys are so manipulative).  After being rushed out of the hotel, onto the metro, and onto the train stop--without buying dinner, mind you--we made it to Platform 9 with 10 minutes to spare. Yay for Dan. 

The train ride was super pretty though--it was really nice to finally be able to see some sort of greenery--aka grass--because there is basically cobblestone streets, pavement, and more streets in Brussels. I'd say we arrived in Amsterdam around 9, which we were kind of weary about because we couldn't check in to our hostel until 10. Never fear, we actually didn't get there until 10 because we got lost trying to find our hostel. We essentially walked 15 minutes in the opposite direction. Alas we found the...lovely?...Oranje Tulip Hotel--yes, that is how it's spelled.


We were kind of sketched out being in a hostel because we booked for 8 people in a 9 person room. So, if you can do math, that means there will be some random person stuck in our room. We called the day before and they said the space had been booked and we were thinking that someone psycho would live there and then chop us all into pieces. Luckily, none of that happened and we ended up with Daniel (lastname unknown) from Maine, who just graduated from U of Maine and decided to travel across Europe as a gift to himself. He was a really cool guy and the boys definitely enjoyed having more testosterone in the group. 


After checking in and setting our bags down, the girls decided to grab some food, while the guys participated in...other activities.  We settled for day-old, on-display-for-over-12-hours, stale veggie pizza, that had no cheese. Basically, I wouldn't really consider it pizza, but hey, what can you do? We met some guys who had just graduated from Oregon, which was nice to have a friendly American face. Mainly, this was because we are tired of not being able to speak English and having people understand us. Again, what can you do? After...eating...the girls decided to find a nice bar/pub to sit and relax in and wait for the boys to find us after their...activities. We found Slainte, an Irish pub, that was quaint and just enough mix of loud, tourist and quite, local. I have expanded my alcoholic choices to a Tropical Orange Bacardi Breezer--aka you can't taste the alcohol because it's basically like Fanta. After a little bit, a few people in the group decided they wanted to take a tequila shot. Let's get real people. I have never done a true shot in my life, much less consumed tequila--but I thought heck, I'm in Europe, let's see what happens. 

And what happened was a lovely sight.  The moment the taste of tequila touched my tongue, my reflexes kicked in...one thing led to another and there was tequila all over the table and on the sleeve of my shirt. Needless to say, I think tequila tastes disgusting and I will never drink it ever again. After an hour, we decided to check out the Amsterdam night-life by going to a bar/club mix thing, Players. Basically, one half is a bar and the other half is a dance floor. Naturally, we all started dancing like Americans--in a circle. However, some people danced a little more than others (Garrett), but I won't be mean. Actually, here's a sample:

After staying at Players for a few hours, we decided to return to the Oranje Tulip circa 3 am. Recapping my life story, I haven't stayed up past 3 am since a slumber party in like 7th grade and even then I took a nap that afternoon so I could stay awake. But, the story gets better. We come into the Oranje Tulip to find not only one person that was supposed to have moved out of our 9-person room earlier that day, but another man laying in Kevin's bed. Being the lovely Americans we are and keeping a long story short, we had to kick them out so we could keep our space because let's face it people, we are not about to let somebody stay in our room that we already paid for, for us to occupy. Fortunately, it all worked out rather swell and finally hopped into bed around 3:45.


Friday morning came and we all slept in until about 10:30ish and decided that it was breakfast time. However, I wouldn't necessarily call our meal a breakfast-of-champions...more of like a chocolate waffle, some more of that day-old-pizza, and a hotdog (that didn't look like a hotdog) covered in cheese with bacon bits--or something of the sort--on top. Looking back, it probably wasn't the best call to make. After going back to the lovely hostel to shower, we all decided to take a canal ride around the city. 

Despite the fact that it rained and therefore we had a top on our boat making our pictures have a bit of a glare, the ride was pretty nice. We definitely got to see a lot of the city that we may have not been able to see on foot. The best part about Amsterdam is definitely how it's set around the canals and essentially on the water. SO PRETTY. FYI: Did you know that there are about 3,000 houseboats in Amsterdam? Space issue, duh. After the canal tour, we decided to take another tour...maybe a less classy one...but a tour nonetheless. We'll call it: The Heineken Experience. It certainly was an experience, getting there at least, because what should have been 30 minutes walking, turned in to over an hour walking.  At least we got to see more of the city, right? Basically, we paid 15 euro to walk around a "museum" where we learned how Heineken brews it's beer, what's inside of it, and then you got to taste. My favorite part was probably the simulation of actually being the Heineken beer--I guess I'm a 7-year-old, right boys? Regardless, I used my token to get a Pepsi because Heineken tasted disgusting. 

After the four hour excursion we decided to grab dinner at none other than the place exactly below our hostel who said they would give us a discount but never did. Rude. After that we went to a couple of bars, but Hannah and I decided to go home early because 1.) we were beat and 2.) Amsterdam is sketchy. Everyone else ventured out to the Red Light District and then to Players once again...I think they had a good time.  


Saturday started out pretty interesting. Since Hannah and I went to bed earlier than everyone else, we decided to get up and take showers just to be out of everyone's way. After I took my shower, I got ready in the bathroom and when I finished I attempted to unlock the door and get out. Ummm, wrong. Basically I somehow locked myself in the bathroom and eventually woke everyone up trying to do so. Hannah even had to go get the guy from the front desk/maintenance to come let me out. He said that I needed to unlock the door to get out, however, I never locked it in the first place. Needless to say, I became the butt of jokes for a little bit. I swear I never locked it...


After the bathroom fiasco, the girls decided to head down to a bakery and grab some croissants and coffee for breakfast. YUM. Once heading back to the Oranje Tulip and grabbing the boys we ventured out into Amsterdam once more, heading towards the Van Gogh museum. While the museum does not consist of Van Gogh's main works of art (Starry Night), it is the biggest compilation of his work in one space...so it was pretty legit.  

It's amazing to see artwork from hundreds and hundreds of years ago still in tact, still being able to see the brush strokes, and still beautiful.  It is truly an awesome sight.  After about an hour walking around the museum, Hannah, Katie, Kristen, and I (the ones who went to the museum) decided to meet up with the others who didn't go in, in the park. 


We all wanted to go to the I Amsterdam sign, which is pretty legit and obviously a main tourist attraction. It is honestly nothing special besides a huge sign that you can climb on and take pictures with and around it is just a fountain and a mini-park.  Definitely a must-go-to while in Amsterdam, but nothing that literally takes your breath away. 

After moseying around the sign for a bit, having photo-ops, and running into a crazy man singing Happy Birthday and beating on the letter e, we decided to make our walk back...through the shopping district. Needless to say, the girls decided to do some retail therapy at H & M (new favorite store) and somehow, I ended up getting everything that was orange. I mean, it's never to early to start planning for gameday outfits. Right?


After our lovely shopping, we all decided to head back to the hostel where we all essentially split up. Half the group decided to participate in a pub crawl. While it would have been super cool to get a t-shirt, Hannah and I were not about to pay 15 euro for unlimited shots that we were not going to take. Nonetheless, we grabbed a nice sit down dinner, did some more souvenir shopping, ate some Ben & Jerry's ice cream (yes! they have that here too!), and had lovely conversation for the duration of the evening. But if you are ever in Amsterdam, definitely do the pub crawl because I think the rest of our group had a pretty good time, judging by the noise/conversations I heard at 4 am the next morning. 


Sunday came and it was time to leave Amsterdam. Hannah, Kristen, and I decided to head back around 11 that morning so we could come back to the Citadines and do some homework and laundry (that took approximately 5 hours, ridic.) If you couldn't tell, we all had a blast in Amsterdam and I would definitely recommend it to anyone travelling in Europe. However, if I ever go back, I'll stay more in towards the city and not by the touristy part in order to get a not-so-American feel if that makes sense.


Stay tuned for more blogs in the next couple of days because I have some catching up to do!