Amsterdam, Day 8

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I was so groggy when I woke up... Adam's call startled me. He got to the airport earlier than he was supposed to arrive, and he had even picked up his luggage already when he called. I rushed to get changed and headed to central station, where we were going to meet up.

I had told him to meet me by the exits, but I didn't know there were multiple gates.... It took awhile for us to find each other, but luckily we were able to because the station had wifi and we were able to use viber to coordinate a location to meet up. He hasn't changed much since I last saw him, except he looked a little thinner! It was great to see him, can't wait to see what awaits us these next few weeks.

We arrived at the Barbizon Palace only to be disappointed that we couldn't check in until 3 pm, so Adam left his luggage there and then we went back to my hostel to retrieve all my stuff. He didn't seem too fond of the hostile environment, and to be honest it became a little uncomfortable for me as well because all the beds were constantly filled up with people, so there was little privacy for anyone. Plus, the night before these girls were being very rude and watching some movie with the lights on around midnight, giggling and making noise while everyone else was trying to fall asleep. I don't miss that place at a all, except for the kitchen area (Joon and I cooked so much food in there).

We had breakfast and we took the tram back to the hotel so I could drop off my stuff. Afterwards we went around to the few coffeshops that were open, and Adam was shocked with how liberal the culture is. I was shocked my first time as well, but after the second time you really get used to it.... It feels like a lawless country after awhile. Since he had gotten little sleep on the plane ride over here, Adam was pretty tired after we were done with the coffeeshops even though it was only like 11 am, but the day was starting and he didn't want to miss a second of it. We ate some lunch at this small italian restaurant that was run by an italian family, and we had some delicious meat and cheese calzones. In fact, Adam had two calzones and a slice of pizza, it was so damn good! After that we ran into a pastry shop and of course, we both wanted to look inside.... I had gotten used to the allure of these shops at this point, so I was able to resist the temptation to buy anything but Adam was just trying to soak in all in. I'm pretty sure he bought 2 or 3 different cakes from the shop, which he devoured. The food was a huge hit for him so far.



We wanted to do something cultural right away, so we went to the museumplein, where the Van Gogh museum and the Reijsmuseum are both located. I wanted to see the Van gogh because I'm familiar with his paintings, and also because it is one of the top 25 most visited museums in the world. And that statistic is no joke... We got to the line and had to wait about 45 minutes or so just to get up to the front! We had bought tickets before though, and I realized that we were in line for tickets, not for direct entry into the museum... so it was actually pretty funny, we had wasted all that time for nothing. Adam wasn't too happy.

The museum wasn't very large compared to others that I've been to thus far, it has about 3 floors of van gogh paintings excluding the ground floor. I guess they didn't resonate with me as much as others that I saw, or maybe they didn't stand out to Adam either because both of us just kept moving on from painting to painting. One work of his that we both liked though was titled "Wheat field with Crows", and it was one of Van Gogh's last paintings before he shot himself in the chest. You could see signs that he was going mad just by looking at the painting, with the scorching ground underneath the swaying, menacing wheat adding to the ominous and desolate mood of the lone man that was trying to harvest his crops... We both looked at the painting for awhile before we decided it was time to get going.



We checked into the hotel at 3 pm , and Adam completely crashed, he was so tired and he couldn't keep up anymore. I somehow had some energy left, so I decided to check out the small gym that they had downstairs and worked out for awhile before taking a shower and finding a quick bite to eat all while Adam caught up with his sleep. He woke up around 9 pm, completely rejuvenated from his long nap. I took him to the same place I went for dinner, where he enjoyed the same falafel that I had scarfed down not too long before... It was really good. He wanted to go to a bar afterwards, just to savor the liberating feeling of being able to buy a drink without being told that you aren't of age, which I completely sympathized with. Who am I to deny him?

We went to a pub called Bavaria, which served only Bavaria Beer. We ordered their largest glass and talked for awhile, and I stared off into the streets while he was trying to soak everything in. I was pretty tired, so I opted to go to bed soon, which he was fine with. We want back to the hotel around 11 pm to get some sleep. Great start to the next couple of weeks with Adam for sure.

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