I Amsterdam

So this weekend was quite the experience. I went to Amsterdam with a friend I met from Schiller. Her name is Araceli and she is coincidentally from Mpls.

So Saturday at 5AM we left with another friend from Schiller, his name is Philipp-- he is spending the week in Brussels. Phil borrowing a car from someone at school so we drove there. I was pretty excited because I knew there wasn't going to be many people on the autobahn so we were gonna blaze a trail. It took about 4 hrs from HD to Brussels, and the top speed was hit about about 230 km/h which is about 140 mph. I'm hoping to rent a car sometime soon so I can drive that fast-legally.

So when we got to Brussels Araceli hopped on a train to Amsterdam. It was a very scenic ride thru Holland and Belgium. It was about a three hr train ride but we didn't mind because we were both pretty tired.

When we finally got to Amsterdam we learned that there were NO hotels or hostels available cuz there was a media/tv conference in town all weekend. So we weren't really sure what to do, but we went to this travel agency and they had just got a fax about an available hostel/hotel/apartment. Yeah it was weird, ill get back to it.

So by now it was 3PM and we were happy about getting a place to stay so we ventured over to Vondelpark where they have to big "I amsterdam" sign. We took some pics then headed over the van gough museum which was very interesting. After that we headed to the place we were staying.

Okay, so this place we were staying was basically an apartment that a landlord rents out. So we ring the foorbell and the guy comes down and shows us the apartment, it was a bedroom with bunk beds, a kitchen living room, and bathroom, so it was pretty big, but we only spent 7 hrs there-sleeping. So after we checked in we headed into the city at about 9pm to check out the night life.

I didn't really know what to expect in the Red Light District, but it certainly was an experience. Basically it was a lot of "Coffee shops," Restaurants, Souvenir Shops, Bars, and prostitutes. We didn't spend a whole lot of time in the RLD cuz we were super tired, but I will say I saw enough of it for a LONG time.

I went home actually kind of sad because the city is filled with so much sin. Seeing the prostitutes was a hard thing to see because I felt so bad that these women lived like this.

So came home around 12 and enjoyed a good night of rest. We woke up Sunday at about 8:30, checked out of the apartment and headed over to the Ann Frank house.

This was pretty sweet because it has so much historical significance. We spent about an hr here than had some lunch and went on a Canal ride. The canal ride lasted about an hr and took us thru the streets of Amsterdam.

After the canal ride we did some shopping and killed some time before we left at 6. We rode home with some girls from Mannheim, a neighboring city of HD, I found them on mitfahrgelegenheit, the website like ride share.

We got home at about 11 Sunday night and I was to bed right away.

The End.

Eric