Amsterdam

Well, I can’t say that this particular morning started out well. I woke up with a wicked hangover and could barely make it up and to the train. My hair spray exploded in my suitcase on the subway ride over and dripped all down the metro and soaked my clothes. We made the train as it was about to leave only to find that our “sweet deal” on the tickets meant that we would not be getting an actual seat on the train but were confined to the metal compartment that attached each cargo to stand in. It could be worse. And it was. About 5 minutes into the four and a half our train rides one of the passengers comes through our compartment in search of a bathroom and proceeds to have a puke party that never seemed to stop. Mind you the space is about the size of a small bathroom so after the disaster was merely covered up with paper towels it smelled worse than a fraternity house. At this point a young crazy girl happened to be thrown out of her seat for disturbing other passengers and thrown into our pukey jail sail with us. She proceeded to smoke a cigarette under the huge “non fumer” sign. Honestly, although this normally wouldn’t do much for a hangover, the smoke smell covered up others in the room. Only a few minutes later this crazy began to start screaming at Nate and I at the top of her lungs. Unfortunately, or really maybe fortunately, we had no idea what she was saying as it was all in French. This continued for some time and after standing completely dumbfounded I told her to shut up. For some reason, she did beat me to a pulp but mocked me and headed off. Only a few minutes later salvation came with the attendant informed us that there were two empty seats after Brussels and we could take them. My eyes filled with tears of joy and relief. We sat down and no more than 2 minutes later were ushered out as it turns out the person was in the bathroom and did not actually get off. Instead of heading back to barf town we found that there was a bar with two seats and drowned our sorrows in many a beer.

At last we got to Amsterdam and headed to a hotel. The rail system broke down on the way and we walked there in the rain. At this point we would have walked through a pit of hell to be off of the train. Amsterdam is beautiful. Quaint, I would say. Brick streets, canals everywhere and cute shops and cafes threaded along every street. Grabbed a quick bite and headed to explore. We stopped in a few pubs and tried some local beers. This happens to be a city where “coffee shops” are everywhere and some indulgences for some that happen to be illegal in most places can be consumed here in public. We’ll leave it at that. Went back to the room and ate our weight in room service.

Day 2- Woke up and made our way to the Anne Frank house. This was truly a surreal experience. You walk through the rooms that were once occupied by this family. There are still photos on the wall and the actual diary displayed. It’s a heartbreaking experience but one that should be done. After was walked around and headed to the Heineken Brewery for a tour. Really a pretty fun tour. Plus, you get three beers with your ticket. My favorite part. That evening we went to the red light district. Really just like it sounds but was somewhat surprised at how cute the working girls were. We did a little bit of a pub-crawl, looked through the windows at a peep show and ate food off of the street for dinner. Not literally off of the street but in the vending machines and street stands.

We really loved this city. Maybe the most of all. Such a chill laid back attitude. The food was good and it was absolutely beautiful. Fun pubs too. All old school with lots of dark wood, cubbies and candlelight. We could have spent way more days here.

We had a wonderful time in these cities. Started planning for new ones on the plane home. We always have so many adventures, I really can’t imagine living life any other way.