Advertisement
Published: April 25th 2012
Hallo!!
I can't believe I only have about a month left! Time is FLYING!
This weekend I hopped a flight to Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands. Its located on the Amstel river but the whole city is built over and around dozens of canals. We took the train from the airport and landed right in the middle of the city. Central Station is HUGE, although Grand Central is still my favorite station 😉 We checked into the Flying Pig Hostel, packed with students decorated mis-matched wtih a pool table bar and "Piggies" menu. After dropping our stuff off we wandered our neighborhood checking out little shops, including one truly amazing cheese shop with endless amounts of free samples. If I had room in my backpack and suitcase of treasures, I would have bought at least 4 different kinds! Also there were amazing waffer and syrup waffle-like snacks that are to DIE for. After gathering up the rest of the group we headed to explore the rest of the town. And wouldn't you know it right in the Dam Square, in front of the Royal Palace was a carnival, I swear they are following me around Europe! Come to find
out the carnival was for Queen's Day, one of the biggest celebrations in the Netherlands which would also explain all the bright orange decorations and shirts on sale that weekend!
On Friday we took a tour of the Anne Frank House/Museum. Inside were qoutes from her diary, kept safe from a family friend until she returned from the camps. However, only her father survived and promised to publish his daughter's book, as she wished. There are interviews of Anne's father, Otto, friends and others explaining the tragedy of this time period and the difficulties of life in hiding. The tour explains every room with pictures of what it might have looked like during their time living there. It was absolutely eye opening to see how many simple things we take advantage of everyday while kids like Anne in this time couldn't walk around their rooms or look out of windows.
The rest of the day we wondered the city, checked out the carnival, get a quick bite and headed over to the Red Light District. At first we were a little lost then decided to just follow the herds of men, we assumed were going to that direction.
And wouldn't you know it? They found it for us! Coming up around the corner of the main drag is such a culture shock. Where we had walked earlier that day, thinking all the windows were shut becuase of privacy for peoples homes, were now wide open and displaying women of all ages, race, size, and shape. It was amazing to realize that these women (we learned that most are not at all dutch, but just there to make money from other countries) seem perfectly at ease with being on display like barbies on a shelf. Some were on the phone, doing their hair or gossiping with their neighbor as if they weren't being gawked, pointed and stared at. Walking through the area was a very eye-opening experience and definitely one of the strangest experiences I've had.
The next day we scared down as much free breakfast as we could before heading on over to the Heineken Factory. It is a little tough to navigate the city at first since the signs are pretty high up and there aren't many directionals to main places, until you find another main place, like the church. But we succeeded! And once the
line was skipped thank goodness for online tickets, we were on our way to learning how Heini's are brewed. Each room had different themes and started from being able to smell and taste the hops to learning about all the parts of a perfectly poured beer. In between stages was a virtual 3D part of the tour, free beers at the bar, a horse barn, interactive "make your own postcard/musicvideo" and a lounge with Heineken commercials playing nonstop. It was a great experience to try it out but I wish we could've taken the free canal ride!
After the factory we headed out to find a Wok to Walk, very popular asain food in Amsterdam. You choose a base, noodles or rice with vegetables and add on "toppings" like chicken or beef, pineapple, cashews, brocolli and any sauce and they wok it up and give it to you in a to go box so you can get on your merry way! These places are constantly busy and well worth the wait! Another quirk about Amsterdam cuisine that we noticed is the heated vending machines. The stores look like any fast food place but instead of ordering your whole meal
through a cashier you can simply walk in with a euro coin, put it in which ever food you like and a door opens to a burger, egg roll, grilled cheese, sausage all heated up and ready to go!
Sunday Sara and I woke up early and headed around to explore the rest of the city that we hadn't seen, of course it was "only" about 9am so nothing was open yet but we got to see how calm and relaxing the residential areas are and got some great views of the canals, not to mention first pick of souveniors 😊
The last thing I had heard was necessary and we hadn't done was eat pancakes. This may seem crazy but we don't really have pancakes in Spain so it was a treat to be able to order one with banana and chocolate that was the size of my head!! They are made more like crepes than actual pancakes but it was still SO good!
We spent the last few hours shopping around and snapping the last of our pictures before hopping on a train (there was an accident and we had to transfer but they were speaking
all Dutch, oye!) and then splitting up to find our terminals and gates.
It was a great adventure and a completely different way of life that I loved!!
Thanks for reading! Miss you all!
p.s. only about a month left! eek!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0696s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Shaon Hare
non-member comment
OMG!
That pancake is massive! I cannot believe you saw yet another carnival!! they really do follow you around! Of course, another wonderful blog from my wonderful daughter! I LOVE reading them and get so excited when I opened my e-mail and see a notification....Keep up the great work! Love you lots and lots, MOM