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Published: October 28th 2009
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Dam Square, Amsterdam
A view of the carnival and city from the tippy-top of the ferris wheel, sometime around midnight. This weekend I traveled to Amsterdam to meet my best friend Amanda (who you may remember from the Swedish cycling holiday adventure) for two days of boots, maps, music, and friendship. And it certainly was.
Picture this: an enthusiastic reunion between two childhood friends near the luggage carousel in Amsterdam-Schipol, full of hugs and jumps and giggles and inside jokes. They immediately start scheming ways to make the most of their weekend together. The first idea? No sleep. The second idea? Lots of coffee. Did they make this happen? Very, very nearly.
My introduction to the city of Amsterdam was this: as soon as we arrived at Amsterdam Centraal, the main train station, we discovered a machine that prints out maps, complete with routes and destinations, for girls who can't find the street they are looking for on any of the three Amsterdam maps they already have. I love maps. Amsterdam gives me maps. Therefore, I love Amsterdam. How could I not?
We locate our hostel, run by born-again Christians in the Red Light District, deposit our bags in lockers, then head out to explore. There's a mini-festival going on at Dam Square so we ride the ferris
I AMsterdam.
We are-sterdam! wheel and eat fries and waffles and fend off unwarranted male attention. Back at the hostel several hours later, we befriend the Australian desk clerk Jono as we plan the best, most effective way of using our time. We budget approximately 3.5 hours for sleeping each night, as well as three to four extra cups of coffee each day. Ready, set, go.
Saturday morning we're up at the crack of dawn. Breakfast, coffee, and we're off! Flea markets; museums, the prices and lines of which we decided to skip; the
I amsterdam sculpture, similar to the
LOVE one in Philly; lots of decorative elephants; H&M, where I buy skinny black cords so I look more European -and so I have more than two pairs of pants; hoity-toity vintage shops; lunch on the go, like Chinese food in a box - brilliant. Finally, Amanda works her magical music industry connections and we get to enjoy the musical gems performed by
The Felice Brothers. More magic means we go bar-hopping with the band after the show. They're a nice bunch of guys. Plus, their company prevented the sort of untoward advances we had experienced on the street the night before. Back at the
Maphant
Map+elephant=lovesterdam. hostel, we again socialize with Jono the Australian and scheme the night away, including the extra hour we gain.
Sunday morning we awake to pancakes in the hostel, then O NO! WE PART WAYS FOR AN HOUR! You see, I saw the Anne Frank House last time I was in A-dam, so while Amanda went there, I checked out the Amsterdam Tulip Museum. What a little treasure that place is. I bet I know more about tulips now than most of you. What good will come of all this new knowledge is yet to be determined. We reunited quite joyously and made our way to the Amsterdam Historical Museum (we got half off the entry price!), where we of course took some interactive photos. As if that was even a question. By this time our feet are exhausted but our minds are not, so we relax by a canal and eat some
stroopwafels. Yummmm....
Being the nerds that we are, our final activity is checking out the library. It's basically a space station inside. I can't understand why they wouldn't make every library this futuristically wonderful. Then we jump back on the train to the airport. To pass
the time before our flights, we sit on a bench, reminiscing about the weekend and watching people walk through a puddle of vanilla ice cream. The end.
For more on my super-fantastic time in Amsterdam, check out Amanda's blog.
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