Amsterdam

My sincerest apologies to my loyal fans who have been anxiously awaiting the most recent chapter of my exhilarating travel blog. Between all the traveling, they expect us to actually "study" occasionally. I know, right? Ridiculous. This week is midterms week, which means that every day this week I've had an exam or paper due. But, I'm making time out of my hectic academic schedule to keep you up to date on my most recent voyage.

Check out the pictures (not a lot of them) from Amsterdam here.

This past weekend I spent experiencing (there's not another word for it) Amsterdam. My friend from USY, Lauren, is studying in Paris, and we had talked about traveling somewhere together. Her and her two friends were traveling to Amsterdam, so I decided to come along. The only trains available with Eurail seats left on them were Thursday morning, so I decided to use one of my allocated skip days, and took a 10:30 train to Paris. The train was relatively empty, and I had two seats to myself, from which to watch the gorgeous scenery fly by. When I finally got to Paris (it was a three hour ride) I had almost two hours in the city to get from the Gare de Lyon to the Gare du Nord (two major train stations). I set out on a quest to re-find the amazing falafel stand that I'd eaten at this past summer, only knowing vaguely the area it was in. After wandering around the Marais (Jewish quarter) for quite some time, I began worrying about catching my train and asked a store owner to point me in the direction. Having been in Israel two weeks before it really couldn't compare, but I was able to keep enough of an unbiased mind to appreciate the amazing quality of the falafel. With my stomach a little more full, and my wallet a little lighter, I headed for the train station. I got on the train to Amsterdam with no problems, and was off on another adventure.

Our hostel was ridiculously close to the train station (three minute walk) and perfectly located right in the heart of Amsterdam. The room was kind of small, but that's to be expected. We had a room with four beds for the four of us, and our own bathroom which was nice. Despite the slightly cramped quarters, everything was very clean, and the staff was friendly. Our first night we went to find one of the most famous coffee shops in Amsterdam, Kamer, where all the celebrities go (Lenny Kravitz) when they visit. On the way, we stopped for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. The coffee shop scene is really an interesting experience. It's really amazing that people can just walk into a coffee shop and go up and order any blend of "coffee" they want. I'll leave it at that.

On Friday we went to what is commonly accepted as the best pancake place in Amsterdam, the Pancake Factory. Pancakes are something the Dutch take very seriously, so this is no small accomplishment. I had an amazing nutella and banana pancake, which was enough to carry me through the hour-long wait to get into the Anne Frank house. Unfortunately they don't allow cameras in, but it was an extremely intense and meaningful experience. They've turned the entire building into a museum, and you walk through the house seeing the different rooms, reading selected quotes from Anne's diary, and watching videos which included some very moving interviews with those involved in keeping the Franks safe. At the end of the museum they have an emotional interview with Otto Frank, as well as the original diaries. It was really an amazing and moving experience, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone visiting Amsterdam.

After the Anne Frank house, we visited Bull Dog coffee shop, which is another famous coffee shop. They're like the McDonald's of coffee shops; a chain with franchises all over the city. We walked around the central shopping street for a while, before getting dinner. After dinner we went back to the hostel, took a much-needed nap, showered, and then headed out to see for ourselves the infamous red light district. The red light district is indescribable. With certain grandparents reading this, I feel like it would be indecent of me to go into any detail. It was a unique experience.

Saturday I wanted to do the Sandeman's New Amsterdam free walking tour (the same company from Madrid), and so we headed to the location where the pamphlet said they would be leaving from at 11:15. Apparently, what that REALLY means is that they leave at 11. So we missed the tour, but went to the Van Gogh museum which was an adequate replacement. The museum has an amazing collection, not just of Van Gogh but also of his contemporaries. The paintings that I liked the most were the ones from his time in Arles. We had just watched a video in one of my classes about Van Gogh's time in Provence, and it was really surreal seeing them in real life a matter of days after seeing them on a TV screen. After the Van Gogh museum we walked over to the famous IAmSterdam sign, which seems to be famous solely for the sake of being famous, but is a cool photo spot. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing, exploring the city. One noteworthy point was when we visited Dampkring, a coffee shop famous for being the location of a memorable scene from the film Ocean's 12 (this scene). Saturday night we went out to some bars, but didn't stay out too late.

The last few days have all been about midterms. I have one more tomorrow, and after that I'm off to Valencia, Spain, for the festival of Las Fallas! Should be a blast!

Check out this acapella group we saw performing in Amsterdam: