This weekend I went to Amsterdam. We left as a group from the university at 5:30 on Thursday night. It was a rough bus ride including an hour long trip on a ferry but we rolled into Amsterdam around 9:00 am Amsterdam time. We got to sightseeing right away! We went and got tickets and a time slot for the Van Gogh museum first. We also bought our canal tour tickets at the same time. We headed to the Van Gogh museum first off because there was a new exhibit opening there this weekend and we wanted to make sure to get that in. It was a really cool special exhibit not only featuring Van Gogh but also many other artists. We got free prerecorded tours with the exhibit so it was fun learning about all the different paintings and such. After we got through the special exhibit we headed through the permanent collection of Van Gogh pieces. They were amazing! He did so much work considering how many years he painted!
After Van Gogh we went to grab something to eat. We ate at this little café called Pompa. I had a salmon ciabatta. It was interesting. Nothing like some raw fish on bread.. no lettuce or anything!
When we were done eating we went on out Canal tour. It was really fun to just sit in a boat in the canal and take in the city. It was beautiful! I took so many pictures during the trip. Megan and I also went to the back of the boat so we got to be outside for part of the trip. We got little bits of information about the city from this tour as well. We learned that when they drain the canals they find over 26,000 bikes a year! Craziness!
We hit up a few shops after the canal tour and then headed to the red light district to check things out. It was an interesting walk through the red light district seeing all the sex toy shops and such. We had a bite to eat there and then attempted to take the tram home. The driver was not very helpful and we ended up getting off at the wrong stop and walking a long way home. We were going to take a 30 minute power nap and then go out but the nap turned into our sleep for the night. Apparently we didn’t get as much sleep on the bus as we had thought!
Saturday morning we got up and had free breakfast at our hostile and then headed directly to the Anne Frank house. Oh and since it was Valentine’s day one of the guys that was staying in our room with us (Luke from Wyoming) got Rachel and I each a rose! He said that every girl should get a flower on Valentine ’s Day! CUTE!! Anyway we headed to Anne Frank which was really moving and really interesting. We got to see where the family stayed hidden and learn all about their story. I cannot imagine not being able to go outside for months on end and living in those cramped quarters! They were very determined to save themselves from the German invasion.
After Anne Frank we went to China town to get some food and try to find some cheap souvenirs. We didn’t find any cheap souvenirs but we did find some good cheap food! When we had some food in our system we walked to the flower market. There weren’t many fresh flowers there at this time of the year but they were selling lots of bulbs. It was a very beautiful little street! I bought some tulip bulbs to make mom’s garden a little more Dutch! Hehe
After the flower market we headed to the Heineken brewery for a tour. We got to walk through the entire process of making beer. We also got to sample different things along the way. We got to try barley and hops and a new beer. The new beer was still warm and tasted like cereal without the cereal chunks in it. Not the best thing I have had in my life! We also got to take a “ride” through the life of beer. They put you in a room and played a video and you move around as the beer is mixed of more ingredients are added and such. Kind of a funny little thing to do but it was cool to see the process from start to finish on the inside! We also got two fresh beers as part of the tour.
After the Brewery tour we went back to the hostile and got ready for a night out. We met up with some people I knew from London and went to a great little pub for a few drinks. We were going to go to a club but decided it was too expensive to go in (it was about 15 euros which is somewhere around $23). So we headed back for a good nights sleep.
Before we left on Sunday morning we headed to the Rijksmuseum to see a few typical Dutch artworks. We got to see one of the largest oil painted canvases in the world, which was a Rembrandt piece. There were numerous other Rembrandt pieces and other things like doll houses, Dutch pottery, and etched glass and gold. We hit up a coffee shop on the way back to catch the bus and then jumped on for another great bus adventure. It seemed to go a lot faster on the way back even though I think I slept less. We got back to our rooms about 1:30 this morning, so I took the morning to sleep in a bit and do some laundry. Now I have to head off to my first class for the day! Fun fun!