Amsterdam

Well... Amsterdam was amazing! Favorite place I have been so far. It is also so different from any other place I have been, which is why I think I liked it the best. It's a manageable city that had the best architecture and so sooo many things to do! I wish I could have been there for longer but it gives me all the excuse to go back again!

So the adventure all began on Friday morning. We woke up early and met the rest of the Amsterdam goers at the main parking lot. There were 4 rental cars and 20 kids so there were 7 or 6 to each car. Older degree students were the drivers.... three were from Germany and the other one (my driver) was from Ukrania.  It was his first time driving in England... on the other side of the street so it was a very interesting experience for him and us. Of course he didn't tell us this until we dropped off  Sunday night, which was probably for the better.  Either way he was a PSYCHO DRIVER!! He was glued to the back of the car he was following and if he lost them, he would pull every maneuver possible to get right behind the other car... pretty much like James Bond style. Definitely thought I was going to die on numerous accounts, especially when we cut a bus off. Im alive now so it doesn't even matter. Our driver, Segei, also was all about the french techno music on the radio. Apparently he didn't get a lot of sleep the night before and needed his techno on full blast to keep him awake. Towards the end of the trip, my ears were ringing and I begged him to turn it off.  He said he would fall asleep without if so I convinced him to let me sing to him so he wouldn't fall asleep. Naturally I sang Michael Jackson to him for a good ten minutes, until people starting throwing things at me to try to get me to stop. I don't even care if I made a fool of myself bc we are alive now right? I did happen to catch a little smile out of him in the review mirror. Made me feel pretty good about myself ha. 

Anyways, Friday morning we drove two hours through East London to Dover where we got on a ferry to go across the Atlantic Ocean.  Dover was really pretty with the snow mountains, right on the water. The ferry was unbelievable too, definitely not what I expected. The cars were in the basement of this hugeeee cruise ship, like a parking garage and then we hung out on the top floors for the hour and a half ride. The ferry was literally like a cruise ship. There were numerous bars and restaurants, along with arcades and a grocery store. To pass time, a couple other kids and I played cards at one of the restaurants. It was actually a lot of fun. 

 Once we docked in Calais, France we were back on the road. Our car was the first car in the garage so we were the first to exit the ship.... we thought we were following another one of the Amsterdam cars but we were not. Twenty minutes later we finally realized it when the cars called us to ask us where we were. Of course we were the only car without a navigation system too. Luckily, we had mapquest directions to the hotel, but it was in Dutch. It was quite entertaining trying to follow the directions, actually a lot of fun. We were too far away to wait for the rest of the group so we were on our own to the hotel which was 4 hours from France. It was really cool though because to get to the Netherlands we went through France, Brussels and Belgium... 4 countries in one day!!!  Not once did I see a cop either. Seriously driving in Europe is like a free -for -all, no one cares and everyone goes there own speed limit. Another thing that was really entertaining was that now we were back on the right side of the road so Sergei was yet again really confused because we had just been driving on the other side in London and now we were back on the normal side. haha  

Car ride was for sure the best road trip  I have ever experienced. We played so many games, made fun of Sergei a ton because he never really talked to us but if he did say something it was so ridiculous, and had to crack the Dutch code on the directions to find our way to the hotel. We decided that we were going to make getting to the hotel a race and which ever car made it to the hotel first won the race. Sergei loved this idea and drove even more crazy than before.  Somehow, we managed to get there 45 minutes before any of the other cars and never got lost, even though we had no idea where we were going haha. WE WON THE RACE!! 

By the time we got to the hotel, it was 10pm because we lost an hour. The hotel was super nice, but it was kind of unfortunate because it wasn't directly in the city. In order to get to the city of Amsterdam, we had to take the hotel shuttle to the airport, which was 10 minutes away and then from the airport we took a 15 minute train to the city. It really wasn't that bad but we had to plan according to when the shuttle came and when the train was running. Oh well. That night we just went to the city for an hour or two and walked around because it was already so late. It was so pretty at night. Everything was lit up so nicely and there were so many people out and about.  Somehow we managed to walk through the "red light district" which is where all the ladies stand in the window, hoping to get a customer. I was legit frightened when walking through here. People are so perverted and the girls are not attractive at all. There were also many sex museums and disgusting shops in this district. It was almost like a fantasy land that seemed unreal to me. How could this be allowed??

The next morning Meg and couple other people on our trip went into the city for our bike tour!! It was FREEZING out but we still wanted to do the tour because we heard so many good things about it and bikes were mean way of transportation there. Our bike guide was really really funny and from Minnesota! We road around the entire city and it took us 3 hours!!! My hands were definitely numb at the end of it and my face was frozen but it was well worth it. This was by far my favorite city. It wasn't too big either and really easy to get around. Also SOOO pretty and the architecture was incredible. A certain area of the city was called "Crooked Houses" because the buildings weren't perfectly alined... kind of confusing, but it looked amazing. The canals also were gorgeous. I didn't realize that so many people have boat homes either. A lot of people do and I found out that having  a boathouse is an equivalent price to having an apartment... it is not cheaper to live in  a boat. We road over a bridge that apparently James Bond jumped off onto a boat in one of the James Bond movies.. it is the most famous bridge in Amsterdam purely for this reason haa. 

After we warmed up for a little bit, we made our way to the Heinekein Museum. By far my absolute favorite museum I have ever been to as well. It was so interactive and we got up and did so many things. We saw the brewery where they made the beer, learned that 90 percent of the beer is water too. Also saw the Heinekien horses... went on a mini rollercoaster to learn how they made the beer... watched different kind of Heinekein commercials, dating back into the 70's, sampled the beer, and made a Heinekein music video in Dutch. At the end of the museum, there was a green bar area where each museum goers got two free beers and socialized with other people!  So so so funnn. You could even personalize a bottle with your name on it for 5 euros. 

Once we were done with the fabulous museum, we walked around and found a Mexican restaurant to eat at. Meg and I have been graving mexican food since we had gotten here and they don't have mexican food in London either! Dinner was wonderful and our group got the whole upstairs area to ourselves. After our delicious meal, we walked around a little bit more and stopped in a couple coffee shops that our tour guide had recommended to us. It was just interesting to see what it was like. Again I felt like I was in a fantasy land, seeing people smoke so openly and ordering different kinds of weed. haha. 

We only walked around for an hour or so after dinner because we were exhausted from our tour and walking around all day. We went back to the hotel around 9pm and took advantage of our pool at our hotel. Kind of fun, but yet again tiring and we were probably in bed, asleep by midnight. Meg and I also wanted to wake up early Sunday morning to go to the Anne Frank house because we had to leave to go back at 1145am that day. I am so happy we did wake up early to see that because it was incredible. I had the chills the entire time inside, seeing where the Frank family hid for two years or whatever and seeing everything they did and just the living conditions the family dealt with. I read the book in 7th grade so everything pretty much came to life for me, which is kind of weird to say but it really did. It was so soo sad but I am happy we went. 

Once we made it back to the hotel, we piled back into the same cars and made our journey back to France. Not as thrilling as the way there because we stuck with the group, but still pretty fun. By this time I was used to the techno and pounding in my ears that we kind of just danced for the whole four hours. We had an hour to kill when we got to Calais before we got on our ferry so we just roamed around the port city. Kind of a dead area but interesting to see. 

That's pretty much all that happened after that.... happy that I am done traveling for awhile now. We had traveled three weekends in a row and now I am not traveling again for a couple weeks, when I go to Scotland with my mommmmmy and then Dublin for St. Patty's day!!