Amsterdam, a weekend to remeber

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July 21st 2008

Published: July 21st 2008

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Craig n zulu

First look at amsterdam

This Amsterdam weekend is one I will probably never forget. The 200 hundred pictures I took will make sure and help me not to. It was amazing and different and interesting and crazy. A lot of what I will remember can't even be translated into words but is just sheer experience in such a different place.

Its 9:00 in the morning and we have arrived in Amsterdam. The Pi Kapps and I go off in one direction while Laki and the other I was travelling with go in another. We start walking towards the hotel and an hour and a half later we are there. WE misjudged the distance a little bit and the route we took was a little bit off walking a huge circle rather than straight there. We finally do get to the hotel though and everyone crashes from the ordeal that was the train ride. We all sleep for awhile and then me and Jeff wake up and go try and figure out what we are going to do with this day that everyone else is sleeping. We decide to go to the house of Bols. We get a taxi and start heading over

Graffiti

Really cool stuff all over Amsterdam

there. I call Laki and that group on the way to ask if they want to come and find out they were thinking about doing the same thing. We all show up at the house of Bols and go into one of the coolest museum type experiences I ever had. It is a tour of how to use your senses better in drinking cocktails, the history of cocktails, and the product placement of Bols Liquors. It was really a cool walking tour and then at the end you got to pick a drink you wanted. All of us picked the drinks we thought would be the best and then go upstairs to a really cool bar. The bartenders make all our drinks, all of which are a shade of pink, and all of which are delicious. We have the drinks and then Laki asks the bartenders if we could just try a couple of the other flavors they have behind the bar. In what seems like a Disney moment they just up and say you guys can try all of them. So we look over one second and see our drinks, the next we see our drinks surrounded by thirty-seven

BIg Church

Have absolutely no idea what its about but was cool

different shots. We form a short que and taste them all, which were all delicious. Laki of course though has to prove himself as a man and instead of trying each one he just goes down the line and takes the rest of the shot of all of them. It was crazy. After that we sat and talked to the bartenders for awhile and I got to practice some flair bartending. It was so cool to actually juggle Liquor bottles. We finally get out of the House of Bols and go our separate ways back to our hotels. Later on when we meet up for dinner Laki in his usual style asks a bum where cheap good food is. The bum actually doesn’t kill us but points us to this really good cheap Indonesian restaurant. We go and feast on Indonesian food that is actually very good and not what I would expect a bum to consider a common place to eat. This was a really short and tired day for everyone but after dinner we all go home and sleep for hours.

So now we are getting up for our first real morning in Amsterdam and decide

I think in front f the royal palace

that we must go get Dutch pancakes. The Pi kapps and I all roll out of the hotel and try and find the closest pancake house. We find one called Sara Pancakes. IT was a really cool breakfast; I got these things called poffertjes. It was like a little Dutch pancake balled up with powdered sugar and butter, so good. After that we all walked outside full and felt we needed to get some culture while we were there. We decide that the Van Gough museum would be a good choice. We get over to it and go inside and I am immediately struck with the amazement of actually seeing some of these famous paintings in real life. I mean to actually be in the presence of such great works of art is absolutely breathtaking. The museum was a lot of fun and once we left we walked outside to bright and sunny skies, a change from the almost constant rain. Jeff and I meet up with Laki to go and meet one of Jeff's Friends. We get to a cafe right in the middle of the square Rembrandts statue is in. Laki and I try some of the local

Beutiful canals

Looked like this everywhere

beers while we are waiting on Jeff's Friend. When Jeff’s friend, Lex, does arrive he introduces himself and his friend s as we sit down to chat. We talk for awhile about what he does, works with geocoding, and eventually get to our rumbling stomachs. We ask him for a good place off the beaten path and he tells up to go to this Thai place call Na Siam. It was absolutely the best Thai food I have ever had. I mean it was delicious, the service was great, and not expensive because it was really out of the tourist district. After dinner we go and start to head back to the hotel and run into the rest of the group they are all on their way out to a bar so we decide to hop on and go with them. Once we get there we realize what time it is and Laki has to leave to catch his bus back to his hotel and we decide to go to the Red Light District. It was the craziest place I have ever been. I mean not only because of the women in the windows but because of the fat of

Interesting building

You never know what building is going to be around the next corner

how many people were there. I mean there were throngs of people milling about and nothing really happening. It almost seemed like a dark ride at Disney except there was sex on stage and not Winnie the pooh. After walking around for awhile in the big crowds and tiny streets we decided to head back. We all get back to the hotel and wash the red light district off us as we get in our nice beds to sleep.

So this last real day we have in Amsterdam we decide that we want to accomplish as many things in possible. WE get up out of bed and meet downstairs in the lobby. It was really early and none of us of course had eaten yet so we all decided to go to another pancake house. This one was pretty cool. It seemed more like someone’s house you were eating in rather than a restaurant. I got a Dutch pancake with apples and raisins that were amazing. Now that we had all finished we looked at the map to see where we were close to and saw that the Anne frank house was the closest. We start heading over

Crazy boat

there and about halfway there the rain starts pouring down, I mean buckets. Laki and I start huddling around this little tree with an older couple. The gentleman started talking to us about where we were from and about the weather in Holland. He said one specific thing, "god will provide for us". IT was strange how after Laki and I started running almost immediately we ran into a big church near the Anne Frank house. We went inside and started walking around looking at everything. Laki and I stopped by a specific tomb. It was ne that neither of us could believe we were looking at, Rembrandts tomb. Then the gentleman we had seen earlier came up and reminded us that god always provides. IT was just a cool little experience and the church was amazing. I later found out that that church we were in was actually the largest Presbyterian Church in Amsterdam.

Once we got outside and went to see the Anne Frank house we realized the Line was way too long. We decided to take a picture outside and move on. From there we went on to this beer store we saw an advert

Cool picture

for earlier in the weekend. IT was the most amazing beer store I had ever seen, 950+ beers and a whole beer and cider cellar. IT was really cool, I bought a t-shirt there. Once we got out of there we went on to the Amsterdam Historich Museum, which was spectacular. We easily spent three hours in there and only grazed the surface of the collection they had. It was so cool to see so many things from all the different periods in Amsterdam’s History. I really liked it and was able to keep occupied the whole time, only hunger pulling me away from the wonders around the next corner. It was once we left that we discovered we had coupons for a canal tour. So we headed up to central station on the trams and saw that the boats launched from right there. WE all got on and spent a good hour sightseeing from the canals and harbor all that Amsterdam had to offer. The only place the boat really seemed not to go was the Red Light District. After that we all had to take a short break so we decided to head back to the hotel. Once

The olfactory experience at the House of Bols

we go there though we realized that the Ice bar that we had reserved for half an hour was about to be our reservation time. It was crazy we started booking it across town to get there and I'm so glad we did. IT was one of the coolest places I’ve been. I mean it was a little bit of a rip off for you to get one drink after a 15 Euro admission but it was really an interesting place. I mean when they advertise that everything is made of ice they are not lying, the chairs, the walls, the bar, and the glasses were all ice. I got some great pictures that were really funny.

Once that was over and we were leaving Laki and I both wanted to go buy a couple of the jackets we were wearing while we were in there, they were really cool and kept you warm. SO we get a flier to the store which is of course across town, and start walking. We get to the store and find out that the jackets are actually made of hemp which was just a cool little fact. One we look for

Thats alot of shots

awhile we realize how much they cost and decided to peace out of the store as soon as possible, I mean they were 200 Euros. So now we are outside the store at 7:37 and have to get all the way across town and back in forty-five minutes. IT was a little ridiculous. Laki and I ran about 2 km in a torrential downpour to the hotel and then I had to pack still and we had to run down the street to the tram stop. We go to the stop just as a tram was leaving but they came every three minutes so we were no worried at all. The tram didn’t come for a good ten minutes though, which is an amount of time I have never had to wait for a tram. We come to find out when we get to the train station that there was a four tram pileup that was clogging up the entire system. But we get to the train station with about eight minutes to spare. Laki and I run up to the platform and get on the train just before it pulls out of the station.

After a horrible

So Sad

Heineken experience was closed for renovations

ride back which lasted entirely too long to not have a sleeper car Laki and I both come back into our room and immediately pass out. Then I get up and get ready for class this morning and go in to another normal day in Austria.

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