Amsterdam, Netherlands!

Greetings from Amsterdam!

Let me begin by saying that I LOVE this city, but I could never live here. It’s not the fact that there are bikers and cars and delivery trucks driving lawlessly throughout the network of cobblestone roads. Despite the reek of marijuana in the air, it’s the tourists that stink. There are 3 clear areas of transportation: one for pedestrians, one for cars, and one for bikers. Even though there are more bikers than cars and almost even more bikers than pedestrians, people will not stay out of the way of the bikers! It was difficult for me to watch, really. Other than tourists everywhere, I really do enjoy this city. We’re sleeping in a hostel tonight and km downstairs in the lounge area. I just witnessed a Scandinavian boy and an English boy meeting each other, how lovely! Me and Christian are both down here using the wifi like hounds because the service doesn’t reach up to our room. Wifi really has become a rare jewel to us, it’s the only way we can communicate with people from home. I wanna go hang out with these foreigners, who also appear to be backpackers, so I’ll try to make this brief.

This morning at around 7, we left Brugge, taking a train back to Brussels. It was odd leaving in the morning because only a couple of businesses were open, but everyone seemed to be biking to work. There were a LOT of teenagers at the train station. It looked like a high school courtyard with a bunch of kids talking, laughing, and being snotty adolescents like teenagers do. It looked like they were all waiting on a bus. So we caught the train to Brussels, shopped for souvenirs for family (I’m sure you can guess what I got you from Belgium, mommy, Madison, and frizzy), then caught a train to Amsterdam. We actually had to ride to Rotterdam then switch trains to get to Amsterdam, but it worked out pretty smoothly.

When we got here, we did one of the weirdest things on Amsterdam’s “must do” list, which was to eat raw red herring. It was served on a hot dog bun with onions and pickles and was surprisingly pretty tasty! After getting food, we walked for a long time looking for the hostel that we had previously found online. We found it then walked around. Wow it’s been a long day, I hardly remember what we did! Oh we got stroopwafel, a delicious Dutch snack that is really good. We walked around some more and looked at stuff in shops. They have cannabis EVERYTHING here. Lollipops, hot chocolate mix, cookies, coffee, everything. Me and Rusti Anne got lollipops and they were disgusting. Somehow I finished mine- probably because I was so distracted by everything going on around me. No lanes in the road, cars and bikes swooping around everywhere, crazy. Today was definitely a change of pace from slow-moving Brugge. We walked around the red light district, sat in some big square, and took a detour through a local university. Luckily, we’re staying here tomorrow so that we can explore more of Amsterdam, then we’re taking a night train to Berlin.

I really like it here and I’m very happy we’ll be here for another day to see Anne Frank’s house, a secret garden, and the Amsterdam museum. We’re trying to cut back on spending, so a lot of tomorrow will most likely be spent enjoying free activities. Well, I’m gonna go try to hang out with these people without being awkward! Wish me luck! Pictures from today below: