Amsterdam

After an extremely long night in Prague, the five of us hopped on a plane and headed to Amsterdam! Since we got there really early, we weren’t allowed to check in yet and since we had heard so much about Amsterdam pancakes, we found a pancake house to sit and have breakfast at. The pancakes were very thin and I had bananas on mine and it was deeeelicious! After that we walked around for a bit checking out the city, not knowing exactly what to expect because of the cities reputation with sex and drugs, but for the most part there was just nice shopping and lots of people! On the walk back to our hostel, we walked through the more “risky” part of town, full of sex shops and “coffee-shops”, meaning a place you could go buy and smoke cannabis or hash. A little disturbed, we continued back to our hostel, checked into the hostel (a room with 16 beds, both boys and girls…this was our first time in a mixed dorm), and took a really really long nap since we had yet to go to bed! We woke up, got ready, and headed into a part of town we hadn’t been yet because we heard it was very lively and fun. Rachel, Erica, and I got a table at a Mexican restaurant and ate outside around the excitement of the semi-final EuroCup game between Germany and Turkey (German won!). The area was really cool, full of lights and outsides pubs, so we hung out for a while but were still pretty tired from all of the traveling so we headed back to the hostel to go to bed.

My sister Lindsay had told me when she had gone to Amsterdam she did this bike tour called Mike’s Bikes, and I found a brochure for it so I decided that would be a great way to see the country side. Rachel, Erica, and Carey decided it sound good too, so we got up early, had breakfast, and headed off to the I AMsterdam sign to start the tour. While it was scary to ride bikes through the busy city, once we got to the country side it was amazing! The country was so beautiful and we got to see one of the oldest windmills left in Amsterdam and we also toured a cheese and clog factory! We got back mid-afternoon, attempted to go to the Anne Frank house but it was closed, and finally came back and napped before dinner at a Japanese-style restaurant and heading to bed. I’m not sure if I have said this, but I probably say that we ate and then went to bed a lot…we aren’t just lazy!! People here just eat dinner really late!!

The next morning allowed a little time for packing and breakfast before we had to say goodbye to Rachel and hello to our final destination of the trip, Dublin!!

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