Amsterdam, The Netherlands

DAY 1:
Friday we got out of class at 1p.m. By 3:00, we were Amsterdam-bound aboard a train from Antwerpen Centraal. By about 4:30 we were boarding another train at a random stop in the Netherlands because our train had "technical difficulties." By 6:00pm we we had arrived!!

We went to our hostel-- only about a 10 minute walk, and checked in. The Bulldog Hotel would be our home for the next two days, and it was definitely an interesting experience. We walked into the reception and were greeted by Luc & Jas (who knows why they don't use the end of their names, or how much they had smoked, but they were friendly enough...). We got our room keys and headed upstairs to check out the room. Jeremy, Leigh, Sara, and I were sharing a room with a guy from Belfast (by way of Boston) whose wife sends him to Amsterdam for a week surrounding his birthday every year, and a group of British guys who were also in town just for the weekend.

We met up with the rest of group and wandered around, exploring. We went to the Sex Museum (a fairly good deal for a museum, only 3euro!!). It was pretty entertaining, and kind of frightening at the same time, haha. Then we headed out to another part of town where we went to "Smokey's" and got drinks and danced. We ended our night by heading back towards the Bulldog, where we relaxed in the lounge/bar downstairs. I have to say, it was bizarre to see people rolling joints and smoking weed openly throughout the city.

In the middle of the night, one of our British roommates talked in his sleep. Not just talked, yelled...profanities. It was funny at first...

DAY 2:
We woke up at about 9, got ready and made it downstairs to breakfast before it ended at 10am. We had the standard european breakfast... bread and cheese. Then we headed out for the Anne Frank Huis. We got to actually see the city in daylight for once!! It's so pretty with all the canals. We found the Museum courtesy of Jeremy and Leigh's navigational skills (I was no help there), and got there early enough that there wasn't much of a line. The museum was really moving. You were led around by quotes from Anne Frank's diary that were written on the walls. In each room there was a lot of information and short video clips from survivors and historians. I can't believe they lived in such a tiny space! After the tour, we met up with the rest of the group who had followed us through.

We slowly but surely made our way to the Van Gogh Museum, which was awesome, but I don't think it was worth 12.50euro. It was still pretty inspiring to see the self-portraits and paintings that I've learned about for so long in school. Afterwards, we found a grassy spot in the park to sit and relax for a minute.

Then we were off to the Heineken Brewery. This was probably the coolest tour we did (and we were actually allowed to take pictures!). We started off with the history of heineken, then we saw how it was brewed...which included an interactive "The Brew you Ride" moving theater ride. Next was all the famous heineken advertising, and finally, the world of heineken bar. It was definitely worth the 15euros, even though I've discovered I don't like Heineken.

That night, we went out to Smokey's again, and got a booth for everyone to sit and hang out at, but we were exhausted and headed back to the Hostel (through the red like district...eek!) pretty early.

DAY 3:
We woke up just in time for breakfast, and then went souvenier shopping, and headed to the train station. No issues with the return train, and we were home by 2pm or so.

[[Today's Pictures Include: a street view of Amsterdam, Me enjoying my Dutch heritage :), and a glimpse of the red light district (across the street is a Cathedral from the 1600s)]]

Up Next: Strasbourg, France with JMU, Interlakken, Switzerland, with a big group, and Milan, Italy for a night...also, dealing with having to do homework and a head cold of massive proportions all while in Europe!!