When we arrived in Amsterdam at 8 pm, it was freezing cold and raining. We met up with one of Ashley's friends that was also in Amsterdam and she helped us find a hostel-most were already booked. We ended up staying in the Bulldog in the redlight district- it was actually pretty nice. We walked around, got some dinner, took in the craziness that is the red light district of Amsterdam, and then went back to the hostel for some much needed sleep.
Saturday we got up early, met up with Ashley's friends, and went on a free 3 hour tour of the city. We saw a lot of the city and learned a lot of interesting history. After the tour and lunch, we went to the Van Gogh museum, which was amazing! My two favorites weren't there, but Van Gogh is my favorite artist, so it was still incredible to be able to see so much of his work. After the museum, we were exhausted, so we took a nap at the hostel and then got some dinner before going out for Ashley's friend's birthday. We started off at a bar near our hostel, and then went to a bar called Europub in Dam square-totally a surreal experience. There was a mix of really old people and really young people, crazy strobe lights, dancing bartenders, and a disco version of "yellow submarine". I felt like I was in a bad teenage spoof movie...
The next day we went to the Anne Frank house. It was interesting to see, and very sad. I've never read the diary, so I don’t know the entire story- I think the museum would have been a lot more interesting and emotional if I had read it, but it was still a good experience. After getting some lunch, we saw the flower market and then just wandered through the streets, looking at the amazing architecture, getting lost but not caring. All of the canals and houses are adorable! We also saw the coffee shop where part of Ocean’s Twelve was filmed. They had the scene from the movie running on repeat inside, it was awesome to see exactly where they were in the movie.
I loved the atmosphere in Amsterdam- very relaxed, lots of hippies! I have some pins on my purse (or my hippie bag as some call it!)- a yin yang, a “one love” pin, and a John Lennon “imagine peace” pin. I get a lot of strange looks for both the purse and the pins in Italy (no hippies here!), but I got tons of complements on them in Amsterdam. Overall, a fabulously relaxing weekend- I would love to go back!
