Secondly, a large group signed up for a trip to Amsterdam this past weekend! I’ve come to realize that it is just assumed that you partake in a particular activity just because you’ve gone to Amsterdam, but in my case I went to visit the city and I just enjoyed seeing the Netherlands. A few people made quite a few trips to the “coffeeshops” which is what they call places where one can get weed. They can’t openly advertise that they sell it there so they call them coffeeshops.
We left Thursday night on a coach which took us to Dover docks on the East side of England. There we got on a Ferry which took us across the channel to a port in France. We coached the rest of the way through Belgium and the Netherlands and got to Amsterdam at about 10am. When we first got there we walked through Vondelpark on our way to our hostel. I shared a hostel with 7 other people and it was pretty nice compared to what I’ve heard about some hostels, though our ceiling did start to leak the second day. :/
We couldn’t check in until 2pm so we put our stuff in a luggage closet and roamed the city for some food. We stopped at the first sign of an open restaurant that served breakfast. After eating a few of us went to the Van Gogh Museum. After that Alex and I went to the House of Bols, where we got a little tour and a taste of Bols liqueur which was first distilled in 1575. A little tour showed us how they use the senses to improve their liqueurs.
Later that day we went to the Heineken factory and had another little tour. This was also a pretty fun place to see.
That night a large group of us got a canal tour which was so pretty at night with all the lights on the water. It took us by important buildings that we got to hear more about and out around the bay north of Amsterdam and back into more canals.
That night we got off near the Red Light District so we found our way back using our handy maps. I didn’t feel very comfortable in the Red Light District at night, just felt kind of out of place, but we were with a large group so it was a fun adventure.
The next day Alex and I got up pretty early to beat the lines at Rijksmuseum (sounds like “bikes”museum). That had some interesting stuff about The Netherlands past with a lot of portraits in it.
After that we headed to a neighborhood called De Pijp where there was a market the length of four or five blocks. We tried a few different fruits (Dragon Fruit and Lychees, which are really common over here). The market had many tulip stands, which were easy to find anywhere in the city actually.
Next, we made our way to the North end of Amsterdam where we visitied some more typical sites. Then we headed to the bay near Central Station. There was a bike garage, which was pretty cool. On our canal tour they told us that there are 3 million bikes in the city.. there are only 1 million people living in Amsterdam. It is just their way of transportation. The guide said many times people will own 3 so that if one is stolen and one is damaged, they still have one.
As we walked back that night, we walked through a park-like square called Museumplein which is surrounded by the museum and the Concertgebouw, a classical music hall. I twisted my ankle walking through the square in the dark; luckily it didn’t slow me down today in our game!
I stayed awake for most of the bus ride home since it was during the day. So I got to see a bit more of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
I head to Paris tomorrow, so I'll have even more to talk about next week!
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