Lost in Amsterdam. Literally.

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Considering it is not nearly as large of a city as Paris, I had a really hard time navigating Amsterdam. Combining the fact that streets are confusing and pretty much everything looks similar with the fact that Michelle is directionally challenged and NO help at all, we were lost more often than we were not. Nevertheless, it was a great trip and I loved the city. Of all the places to get lost, it wasn't so bad.

We took the train from Paris and got in pretty late on Friday night. We stayed at the Flying Pig because its supposed to be a pretty famous hostel. Later we realized that we stayed at the downtown location, which isn't the famous one. Whoops! Oh well. After getting some food, (falafel and fries, which were not NEARLY as good as Amsterdam Falafel in DC), we met up with a few girls from our program who were also there for the weekend. They were going to an ice bar, which sounded pretty cool, but it was 15 euro, emtpy, and Michelle and I didn't feel like being cold, so we went to a coffee shop instead. After discussing our options with the waitress and making some purchases, we met back up with the girls and headed to Leidseplein. We went to another coffee shop called the Bulldog, which was the first coffee shop in Amsterdam. Meesh had gone to the bathroom while the rest of us were sitting at table. Upon her return she started laughing and basically screaming, "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I HTOUGHT THIS GUY SITTING HERE WAS REAL!!!" Trying to get her to shut up while still being discreet I said, "MICHELLE! SIT DOWN! HE IS REAL!!!" She didn't believe me until the man looked at her like she belonged in an asylum. To her defense, he was sitting extremely still.. so I guess it was an easy mistake to make? But not really.

After the Bulldog, we went in search of a bar to hang out at. I was wearing a headband hippy style at the time which seemed to attract a lot of attention. At one point there was a group of Italian men standing outside of a bar who started calling me Pocahontas. They got more and more excited until they began circling around me, jumping up and down and shouting, "Pocahontas Pocahontas HEY HEY HEY!!!!" We ran away.



On Saturday we met up with the girls in the morning to take a free walking tour. We expected it to be kind of a bust because it was free, but it was actually pretty baller. It was about 3 hours long and they showed us all over the city and gave tons of history. First we went to the red light district, which was everything you would expect it to be. Scantily clad women stand in big windows with a red light above them and a bed behind them. If a guy is interested they just open the window and shut the shades. Prostitution is completely legal in Amsterdam, as are most things. Our guide told us that as long as what you're doing isn't hurting anyone else, and you do it pretty quitely, you most likely won't get in trouble for it. Technically, pot is illegal there, but no one has been arrested for it in over 35 years.

There were a lot of thigns that just seemed a little off beat in Amsterdam. For one, they used to tax people based on how wide their houses were, so all of the houses are really narrow. They are too narrow to carry anything up the stairs to the top floors, so they all have hooks at the top for a pulley system. They all lean forward a little so that when you need to use the pulley, whatever you're lifting won't swing and hit the house. Good solution I guess? The most narrow house in Amsterdam is smaller than the occupant is tall; he has to sleep the other direction at night. Who does that??





Everyone always mentions the red light district and the pot when they talk about Amsterdam, but no one ever mentions how absolutely beautiful it is. There really wasn't much I didn't like about the city. All the leaning, narrow houses that line the canals where old houseboats and row boats float like they have been parked there forever. Every inch of railing is covered with layers of bikes; the closer to the railing, the rustier the bike. I took like 7 million pictures on the tour.



The tour ended in Jordaan, near the Anne Frank house. We ate lunch at a dutch cafe with the tour guide and Michelle asked her close to 50 questions. Michelle got some really weird "typical dutch food" called croquettes. It looked like fried meatloaf only mushier. Mooshy would order something mushy. No thanks haha.

We hung out for a while later along the canal before I realized that we were supposed to be checked into our other hostel by 5. It was already 4 and we still had to go back to our other hostel and get our luggage, so I kind of started freaking out. Unfortunately for me, Michelle had just realized that her camera (which she has had for 3 years) has color settings. This is the gist of our conversation:

"Michelle, I think we should get going, we have to be checked in by 5 and I don't know how to get there or how to get back to the flying pig. We should probably leave now, do you think I shoudl call them???"

"OH MYYYY GOOODD!!! My camera can accentuate red AND blue!! Loook Jaymee!!!"

Thanks for the help love.

After successfully finding our new hostel, we went to get dinner at an Indonesian restaurant called Bunga Mawar. There are a bunch of Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam because it used to be a colony of the Netherlands. We both got curry and it was bomb. After dinner we wandered around the red light district again (supposed to be a little more interesting at night), before finding a coffee shop to hang out in. We went to Baba and hung out for a while until we encountered a crazy rasta man who asked me if I woudl roll his joint for him. I told him I had no idea how to do that, but that did not deter him from chatting me up. He was telling me all about St Martin, where he was from, and his big plans to start a jeans company because, "everybody wear da jeans!! I would make so much money!!" That's when Michelle decided it was time to go.

Sunday we went to the Anne Frank house/museum... it was pretty amazing. There were quotes from her diary on the walls of each of the rooms.. it was really really sad. I was borderline Tessie tears about 5 minutes in.

We ended our trip with lunch at a place called Three Sisters on Leidseplein. I started freaking out again that we wouldn't make our train on time, but of course we did. In the end, it was a great trip to a beautiful city!

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