Amsterdam!!!

Hello!

So I think i left off talking about Bruge, which is by the way an AWESOME city. its really pretty! I bought a pair of really cheap gladiator sandals which I proceeded to wear the entire day there. Everything is covered in cobble stones which look nice until you have to walk on them for a few hours straight. Sam and I had to sit around for a while to make sure we didnt loose all ability to walk later.

We visited a couple of sites there, which was awesome! Including this gnarly little thrift store that our weird "local inspired" and very misleading map showed us. While the city was really pretty, we didnt find tons of stuff to do there, so we ended up going back to Brussels in the afternoon and taking a very long nap. I think we both needed it. Sam cause he needed to sleep and I needed to repack and finish some of my trashy books so I can leave them behind and make space for new things. Arent you all so proud of me? former pack rat that I am.

The train ride to Amsterdam was very pleasant and calming. We went through Rotterdam, the Hague and finally arrived at the bustling train station right outside the red light district of Amsterdam. We found our hostel without any problems, and while it wasnt as clean and neat as the very utalitarian hostel in Brussels, it has a very nice community feeling. I think Amsterdam is a much more youthful city, which is really nice. At least, I have had more fun here than we did in Brussels. Sam really liked Antwerp and continues to stake his claim that it is more fun, but seriously, besides some of the super sketchiness, this has been SUPER fun!

Our first day we went for a walk and ended up finding the shopping street, where I fell in LOVE with a store called Desigiual. it's a spanish design store that sells really bright and interesting clothes, and I had a field day looking through everything before I picked out a dress and a skirt. Everything was so gorgeous I nearly died. Since everything here closes around six we didnt have time to do much more shopping so we wandered into the red light district. We is as cool as I expected. It was really funny to watch all these American tourists sitting around smoking pot and drinking at 6 in the evening. or really any time. Cause none of the Dutch seem to be doing it...

So there were lots of pot stores and weird sex toys stores with bars and other such things, but what was weirdest was when we walked past the women who were dancing in the windows. Some of them were old and some young, but there was a lot of make up and glitter and very little clothing. I imagine it isnt much fun for them, especially with all the foreign men walking around and leering at them.

We came back into our section of town and relaxed for a while before we had a pretty quiet dinner next to the canal. I was still playing text tag with Tuomas to figure out when and where we would meet them the next day, but it was relaxing. Back at the hostel we were immediately greeted by the smoke from the people smoking pot in the basement bar. its a really really strong and very present part of life here. It didnt really bother me, but Sam hates it. Oh well, right?

The other thing that is really interesting is that I have heard more English spoken here then Dutch. English of all varieties, but still. Normally the number of tourists would put me off, but I thought the city as a whole was somewhere I would feel comfortable living. Even on the ground floor of the apartments near our hostel where we see the people having dinner every evening while we walk out for a treck.

Our second day we went to Utrecht to see the historically significant town for ourselves. its in the middle of the Netherlands, but it only took us a little less than an hour to get there. There wasnt much to see close to the train station, but as we walked closer into the city we saw lots of cute little stores, including one where we bought cupcakes for lunch (it made the most GORGEOUS wedding cakes! I'll put up some photos later) and a cool store for guys clothing where I bought Pookie a tshirt.

We went to the Museum to check out the collection of even more Dutch golden age paintings, and it was cool apart from the fact that we were the only people under 50 in the museum. Woo. The exhibits were small and generally focused on Religious art (not my favorite) but I could check off a few more artists on the lists of people Mom wanted me to see.

We sat by a canal after that with our cupcakes and watched some of the ducks go by. One duck watched us and waited for some food, but it made the mistake of sitting in front of Sam who was freaking out about it for a while. Apparently he has some fear that Ducks will attack him because they attacked Emily Daggett once (or so she claims) and no one can control them...oh dear. It was only made worse by the fact that the duck jumped up on the ledge and approached him. I shooed it away and all was well.

While was walked back to the train station we admired the University of Utrecht which was not a particularly beautiful building but it looked nice in the sunlight. it was refreshing to be in an area with so few tourists after being with so many of them for so long.

The afternoon was pretty relaxed. We had the traditional Indonesian spread at a place near our hostel and we agreed it was really good! There was a whole variety of meats and veggies, which despite the warnings, were really not that spicy. But they were very tasty!

Afterwards Sam and I wandered around trying to catch up with Tuomas, who was bar hopping with his friends until we found them in the central square near the train station. Or rather, they saw us and waved to Sam who saw them. Sam was tired so he went back to the Hostel to read and sleep some more, while I went on a long treck through Amsterdam, following behind Tuomas and his friends Toni, Petra and Juho. We ended up wandering for a really really long time until this drunken Dutch man came out of a bar and told us to come inside and join the locals. We had a lot of fun sitting around and talking for a while before we entered another long walk to switch venues. Juho and Petra didnt like the idea of dancing, so we didnt go to a Disco. Instead we found another bar at the northernmost tip of the central area and sat there until about 12:45.

Since it was dark and kind sketchy Tuomas took me back to my hostel, which was super nice of him considering it was dark, I didnt have a map because Sam took it, and everything kinda looked the same at that point. We made it back after we checked the map a few hundred times under street lights and followed some signs. But it was good.

This morning, Sam and I saw some more rembrandts and vermeers at the Rijksmuseum and then we went to the Anne Frank House. Between these important visits, we met up with the Finns and wandered around looking for somewhere to eat (sense a trend here?) until we found a cool little falafel place near one of the canals. That was pretty fun, but we all had to say goodbye afterwards. They are taking a train to Brussels now to stay in the youth hostel we originally thought we were going to stay in there. Good times right! When I heard about where they were staying I laughed very very hard.

So now its reaching the end of our trip in Amsterdam, which I will most definitely miss. But there will be more excitement and fun times for us in Germany and Luxembourg next week.

Missing you all tremendously!
Diana