D24: Ooooh, Heineken.

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Laundry morning! Party in Amsterdam, wut wut.

Ahem.

I'm sharing a room with 5 very loud German girls... but they are sweet. This morning when I said I was from Canada one's like "HA! I KNEW IT!" To which another replied, "you saw the leaf on her bag... it's not hard to guess." Dorks.

Since I did laundry, I didn't get out until around 1pm. The dryer... almost caught fire? It was smoking something horrible which is apparently "totally normal"... Yeahhhh, I think not. I took my clothes out - they can air dry thank you very much.

I decided to "find my own way" to the Heineken Brewery... I am not one for maps, but apparently in Amsterdam it's kind of a necessity. (Their streets don't "go straight" like they don't run parallel, but kind of curve around.) Boy did I get lost haha. Not that it's a bad thing, mind you. It's such a beautiful city with all the smaller streets, of course all the canals, and the cafes and sorts. I enjoyed the stroll.

But yeah. My 30 min walk turned into about 2 hours haha.

Few notes from my wanderings:
- I love all the bikes parked along the rails - it's neat to see the regular bikes, the vintage ones, the simply old and rusty ones, just the variety.
- Everything is in the shape of a penis here. Like... they're everywhere? I mean in the souvenir shops. Mostly.
- Herring sandwiches as fast food?
- Mint, mango and pear smoothie. Good or not good? Undecided. It was... different. The mint was a little strong I think.
- I love their floral arrangements along the canals - beautiful purple, white and red.
- I'm more afraid of getting run over by a bike than by a car here.
- The amount of bicyclists is actually amazing - and that they've worked out such an organized lane/road system really is something to be applauded.
- The smell of weed still makes me nauseous, even after getting huge wafts of it all day.

I (finally) made my way to the Heineken Experience - what a cool, cool exhibit!! It takes you through the history of the company/brewery, but is very interactive. They have all these little videos that pop out of odd places (one is "in the attic" of a room, so you have to look way up to watch and listen), they have people explaining various parts of the brewing process and the brewery itself, and they have tech stuff all over. Some of it is gimicky, but all in all it's well worth the price.

(They have this "ride" which basically they just make the floor move, spray you with some water, and put a heat lamp on as you watch a video are "turned into beer". It was so hokey, but made me laugh.)

But, I especially enjoyed the smell and taste tests! When they explain the process of how they make beer, they have barley and hops out for you to smell. Yeah, alright, smelling hops is not pleasant... but smelling the "wort" was (barley + water). We also got to try some "wort" which tastes much better than it sounds... it's like sugary water, but in a good way.

After being "turned into beer", we got our first taste test which was basically a) how does one drink a beer? and b) why the foam? The guy started teasing us ladies about how we sip our beer ("with your pinkies out!") and how that's the worst thing one can do, apparently because you end up just having the foam and you break the cap. (Ah, the foam keeps the bubbles in. Look at that, lesson for the day.)

At the end of the visit you get two free beers to cap off the experience. Ah, I am totally ok with that. The floor was a little gross though - my shoes stuck with every step haha. Oh, so much beer.

Thankfully it was a lot easier to find my way back to Centraal after the visit. I had the best British guys behind me at one point while walking - they started singing the Potter Pals song!!! (Snape. Snape. Severus Snape. DUMBLEDORE!) It took all my restraint not to turn around and chime in. I should have haha.

They then got into a weird talk about "Voldy" and how they wanted to know what would have happened if someone had just shot him in the head. Like, surely that would have killed him. But then they debated do wizards even have guns? It was fun to listen to.

I tried my usual experimental doner kebab - they have carrots on theirs here. SO GOOD. Actually, legitimatly, one of the best kebabs I've ever had.

I walked back through the Red Light District... kind of by accident. I was walking along when I saw a bunch of red curtains and I was like 'oh. I am here?' Of course, another block in and there was no mistaking where I was - the "windows", the loud and uhm shall we say "rambunctious" groups of men, and the amount of sex stores.

I headed back to the hostel after that - yeah, 2 days in the city just isn't enough. Tomorrow I'm doing a tour (out of Amsterdam), so really less than 2 days. I'm taking the attitude of 'it's central Europe and has a huge airport - I'm sure I'll be back' so all the things I didn't get to do, I'll do next time 😊

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Photos

Heineken Brewery
Other brewery photos on my phone... sorry this one isn't overly exciting haha