Amsterdam Day 1

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We were very excited to finally arrive in Amsterdam at around 11 pm, it was the start of yet another great adventure. We didn't get so lost this time, the transportation system here is also very sophisticated but simple. We got something similar to the Oyster card called a chipperkort or something like that, which has pre-loaded credit and scans on every trolley to satisfy the payment. These things resemble trolleys from San Francisco to me, so I'm going to go ahead and just call them trolleys.

Anyway, we headed straight for our hostel after Will had purchased his Eurorail ticket to Milan. It's called the Flying Pig Hostel, located about 30 minutes walking distance outside of central Amsterdam.. the red light district is pretty much the main attraction there. It's kind of nice to be located outside of all that craziness.

The hostel itself was probably the best one I've stayed in so far in terms of cleanliness and hospitality. The staff members all seem to be a couple of years older than us, and they do a great job with cooking/cleaning/upkeep. I can see why many want to work in this particular hostel.... We have a smoke room where literally ANYTHING can be smoked... During the day it's visited by as many as 20 people, all packed together like sardines. It's a completely different culture from all the other places we have been to for sure.

We hadn't eaten anything up to that point, but Joon really wanted to go see his first coffee shop right away. Coffee shops don't sell coffee in Amsterdam, if you want food and caffeinated drinks then you have to go to a cafe... coffee shops are the places where they sell weed around here. I don't know how it's all regulated, but I guess we will find out shortly on the day tour that we're going to take soon. Despite our lack of knowledge of how everything works, we went to this place about 10 minutes walking distance from our hostel. It was pretty weird to be in there, but the environment was calm nonetheless.

Afterwards, we tried to find somewhere to eat because we were starving. Joon and Will couldn't wait any longer, so they stopped at this place by the coffeeshop called Walk to Wok, which sold Chinese food. I wanted some Italian food so I found this small restaurant down a narrow street that had a bunch of different little pizzerias... I just picked a place that was selling any pizza for 5 euros and went in. I told the waiter that I was expecting two other people, so they waited on me to order. The owners were likable people I guess, but I already felt bad for making them wait on our order. After 20 minutes passed by, the guys showed up with small food boxes and started EATING it on the table. When they started to notice what was going on, the owners and the waiter became really pissed off. I was the only one noticing, because the other two were just stuffing down food... In short, I told them that what they were doing was extremely rude and that the owners were just glaring in our direction. I did not feel comfortable at all with this. I told them to leave and I apologized to the owners afterwards. They weren't happy with Will and Joon, but at least I stayed around to pay for the pizza we had ordered... they said it was alright, but I was still pretty pissed off at the guys. I walked out to meet up with them, and they weren't in the best state of mind.... We spent about an hour navigating the unfamiliar streets of Amsterdam, hopelessly lost with the new language and the strange people. It wasn't until I asked a bike shop owner that we finally got some directions back to our hostel. When we got back, we all went to sleep for about 13-15 hours..... what a day.

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