Last weekend, Kevin and I went to Amsterdam and were joined by our friends Kat and Josh. It was a lot of fun even though we barely had any time to spend there. Now, we didn’t go for either of the two reasons that Amsterdam is famous, that’s right, no pot or tulips for us! :) But we had a great time while we were there.
The train station up close.
Saint Nicholas’ Church
Kevin and I arrived at our hostel at 11:00 after taking the wrong train halfway through the city and then taking another train back out. Once we we were there, it took us an hour to check into our room! We were dead tired and yet when we got to the room, Kevin’s bed had no sheets. So we had to wait another half an hour to get them. Eventually, our beds were made and we hopped into our beds. Then, around 4 am that morning, four guys broke into our hostel room and started screaming! They also turned the lights on, which, since I was sleeping on the top bunk I can tell you I did not enjoy!
Yes, this is a Heineken beer vending machine, in our hostel. Sadly, this was cheaper than getting water or soda!
Saturday
Kevin made us get up nice and early so we could see everything in Amsterdam he wanted to plan out. It wasn’t terribly hard considering that everybody else had left the room and quite nosily! We tried to take advantage of the free breakfast but I didn’t find anything I liked, so Kevin ate and we left.
The canals were gorgeous.
I’m not bad looking either. :)
It was like walking around in a postcard.
Dunno what this is but it’s cool!
You can't read this properly but it did say Kennedyland. Loving the American vibe.
The light posts were cool!
These signs were on some of the less cool looking lamp posts.
It made me chuckle.
They had the coolest buildings.
The reason we were over in this part of town was to go to the Bloemenmarkt, the world’s only floating flower market. It was really neat and kind of funny because you couldn’t even tell the stalls were floating, they were just off the side of the sidewalk.
And they sold tulips for the US and Canada so I bought black, orange, and blue ones!
American bookstore!
This was a stamp maker’s shop.
Catholicism used to be outlawed in Amsterdam but this was an area owned by a Catholic woman and Catholics used to be able to live here and worship without trouble.
It was really pretty.
Amsterdamers, Amterdamites, Amsterdamians? were pretty harsh with Catholicism and as a result, some people built secret churches in their houses. The rule about doing illegal things in Amsterdam hasn’t changed much in 200 years. Don’t be too obvious about it and you won’t get in trouble. Then it was Catholicism, now it is weed.
People actually built Catholic churches into houses. This house was a normal size and yet it could hold 200 people for a Mass! Amazing!
After we went back into the center of town and found Kat and Josh!
As usual, they had people dressed up in the streets. Pretty sure this guy knew I was taking a picture of him.
There are more bikes in Amsterdam than there are people! People ride bikes all the time! And they have to decorate them or they all look alike.
Big wooden shoes. I like the Dutch shoes, they don’t seem comfy though!
Before our tour stated, we took pictures in even bigger shoes! And went souvenir shopping.
I decided it would be easier to sit in the shoe.
Kat wanted to walk in it.
The shop that had the giant shoe was a gift shop where they had cows on the ceiling!
Then we went on a walking tour. Here is our guide Geert, pronounced with full on spitting. He was pretty cool.
There was a soccer day thing going on in the main square and Geert was getting quite annoyed that he had to yell to be heard over them.
Here is a post office that was turned into a shopping center.
See that tiny white house? Smallest house in all of Amsterdam! It’s only one window wide!
The next two pictures are of leaning houses.
The white one is leaning so far to the right that it is unsafe to enter it.
The black one is leaning forwards.
This is the church outside of the Anne Frank house. There are two triangles out front. Basically, the reason Amsterdam and the Netherlands are so cool about things are for two reasons. One, money. They were a trading town and if you could do something and make money without hurting people, then cool, go for it. Two, they hated the Nazis. When the Nazis left, the Dutch said, how can we not be like them? The answer was to be as tolerant as possible. I like it.
Here is Kat ruining my picture of the Anne Frank house.
We did go in however, because of the emotional context of the house, you were asked not to take pictures there. It was a really strange feeling walking through a house with no furniture in it knowing so many people had had to live quietly there for so long. And we walked through Anne Frank’s bedroom which still had all the things up on the wall from when she was in it. Super strange.
After our walking tour and the Anne Frank House, Kevin took us to a brewery where there was a windmill on top!
They had cheap beers!
Around 7, we ran to our next appointment at the a dock outside the museum by our hostel. We got there 15 minutes late, oops! But it was a cool cruise. We ordered Dominos pizza by the docks with our choice of dessert and it was delivered to our boat. Once on the boat we got a tour of the canals and dinner with all the free alcohol we could drink. We had a good time. :)
Clock tower.
Anne Frank house.
Me and Kevin on our boat tour.
Josh and Kat
Me and Kevin eating our pizza.
I took a picture of this because when I am at home, if I ever say “Freaking” something, my dad will say, “What kind of” something? And I reply, “Freaking”. This made me laugh so hard, I had to put it up here.
When we were done with the boat tour, we went to the I amsterdam sign. It was pretty cool so of course we had to climb all over it.
Kat and I in the sign.
The whole sign with no one climbing in it.
This is a museum. Yeah, looks pretty freaking cool.
Next, we went back to the main part of town and got a few beers. Or tried to, the beers Kat ordered ended up costing 32 Euro! So we just had the one and left. But it was a really good time as you can tell by Kevin and Kat dancing.
Then I felt bad and wanted a picture dancing too. So Kevin took this one and our waitress really liked us apparently and joined in on the picture.
Rocking out hard core!
When we finished our uber expensive beers, we went on a walk down the red-light district. No pictures there either because you could have your camera smashed! The prostitutes there are looked after quite well and are treated with a lot of respect. It was very strange walking down the streets there.
Kevin and I had to get up early Sunday morning to catch our fight home but that was okay because Amsterdam is very peaceful in the morning!
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