Amsterdam, Holland

After a day running around Mini-Europe with a bunch of Belgium 5th graders, my travel partners and I split up. They got on the Train headed for Paris, and eventually the United States. I hopped a train to the Netherlands. For 3 hours, I sat on a crowded train. I wrote in my journal listened to music. And had many people try to speak to me in Dutch. I apparently look much more Dutch than I do French (which is mildly understandable due to my Finnish heritage which is much more similar to Dutch than French.)

I arrived in Amsterdam, alone and melting in the 90 degree weather. Lucky for me my hostel was only a 5 minute walk from Central Station and the staff was very nice. So I took a shower (an amazing gift for any traveler) and went to the local grocery store. I bought things that I'm still not sure about what they were. But, I absolutely enjoyed the local delicacy stroopwaffel. It's two mildly crunchy waffle cookies with a type of caramel/toffee in the middle. I could have lived off of those. My first night I wandered around. Looking for a place to have a nice drink. I found one with a wonderful bartender at place called the London Bridge.

I've never felt as international as I did drinking an Irish beer, in an English Pub, speaking French, in Holland. It was a great night. I got back to the hostel around 11 and decided to rest up for my excursions the next day. I started off the day by wandering through Amsterdam looking at Tulip Markets, Rembrandt's statue, Dutch Houses, the outside of the Van Gogh museum (should have went in but there was a huge line), I ended up at the Heineken Factory. The tour there was 15 euros and a lot of fun. You learn about the history of Heineken and the process of beer making. At the end of the tour you get to taste the beer...3 glasses of it.

After the Heineken museum I wandered more, around the canals and side streets, and met some wonderful dutch people. Upon, returning to the hostel for some lunch I met a few of my roommates. Two lovely Irish girls who invited me out to a pub crawl with the 4 Irish  boys they came to Amsterdam with. I don't want to go into detail here, as I feel mildly like what happens during a pub crawl stays in a pub crawl. But, the night ended with me guiding 4 drunk Irish people back to the Hostel in the dark. I'm so glad I'm great at paying attention to my surroundings.

I finished the trip to Amsterdam the next morning with a delicious breakfast and a traditional Amsterdam coffee. I boarded to train for a 3 hour journey back to Paris...which ended up to be a 4 hour journey. It probably took me 3 days to recover from my trip to Brussels, Bruges, and Amsterdam. But, it was really worth it.