Amsterdam
Trip Start
May 15, 2009
1
23
31
Trip End
Jul 23, 2009
Amsterdam,
Noord-Holland,
Netherlands
Saturday, July 4, 2009
After we got checked into our hotel, we walked around the area to get ourselves orientated and find supper. We ended up finding an awesome Mexican restaurant. I agree- 'What are you doing having Mexican in Amsterdam?' However, we were in the mood for Mexican, it was close to our hotel, and it was so good we even went back there the next night. Plus I had a salmon pesto wrap, which isn't really Mexican. (These justifications help me sleep at night.)
After supper, we walked around our hotel. We had been in the car all day and needed to stretch our legs. I love the residental areas around here. All the houses are so little and cute with their flower boxes in the windows and flowers neatly placed all over the front and backyards. I also love all the cobble stone streets and the many charming bridges connecting the streets over the canals. Justin and I moseyed through the streets and kept talking about what we would like to add to our house.
Friday we took the train down to the city center as our hotel is north of Amsterdam. (We felt it would be much wiser if we stayed outside the city since we have a rental car.) We walked around the city and found another great restaurant. This one was cheap and had a great selection of fresh, original meals such as, that day Justin had cornbread bruschetta with honey, pear, and blue cheese. Justin liked the menu so much he took a picture of it so he could make their food again when we get home. Then we walked to the Van Gough Museum, which was good, but pretty pricey for what they had to offer. We continued to walk all over the city. We saw a couple churches, plazas, the flower market, and the red light district, which was...interesting. We also went shopping for sunglasses, which I decided I want to have Justin with everytime I go from now on. He never really said if he liked them or not, but more just gave descriptions of what they reminded him of such as, '80s, you look like you're about ready to invade a planet, top gun, remember that guy that was ready to invade a planet- you look like his boss, we should get matching sunglasses...'
Friday night we came back to the hotel to chill and eat out at the awesome Mexican restaurant by our hotel again. We wanted to stay down in Amsterdam until later to see some of the night life, but our legs and feet said it was time to come back to the hotel.
I feel like Amsterdam is very similar to New Orleans. Another place of heat, sin, and tourism. However, I like Amsterdam much better than New Orleans. I like the food better, everyone here is walking or biking (40% of people here travel by bike), there's lots of hippies, and the parks here are big and awesome. Plus, so far, everyone that we've run into is really nice.
This morning we got up a little later and destroyed our room. When Justin and I get to wrestling, we usually make a little bit of a mess, but this was so bad Justin took a picture. I'm pretty sure almost every piece of furniture or lamp had been bumped, moved, or knocked over in the process (but nothing broken). I don't even remember why we started, but between wrestling and tidying the room from wrestling, we didn't get out of the hotel until after noon.
Then we took the train down to Amsterdam and tried to rent bikes. I say tried because it was an hour and half process of waiting in lines, talking to a lot of people, and finding the right building before we finally got the bikes. These bikes were heavy beasts and great to take around the city. The bikes were totally worth the effort. We biked around the city for a while, ate at the fresh, original restaurant again, and biked around the parks. Their parks are huge here and really beautiful. When we were biking in the parks, we remembered that it was the 4th of July today because we saw a group of people that had raised the American flag into a tree. At first we thought, 'What the heck are they doing?' Until we realized what day it was and saw a lot of other people wearing and hanging up red, white, and blue.
Biking around the parks was great but around the city got a bit intense. There were a few times we almost hit other bikers, pedestrians, a couple kegs, a couple poles, the usual. After we turned in the bikes, we went to go buy Justin another pair of shorts and a shirt. We have now figured out how our relationship is going to work. I'm going to lose Justin's stuff, and Justin's going to break my stuff. Justin has had a history of breaking my things, and now I'm losing his things. I was doing laundry late the night before we left Edelweiss. It was a small load, and I brought half of it up to the room to air dry. There was only a couple things that I had to put in the dryer, which also included two of Justin's outfits. I forgot our laundry in the dryer. I'm picturing a map of random things I've left throughout Europe. My guidebook in Crete, my face wash in Venice, my camera in Beatenberg, Switzerland, our clothes in Garmisch, Germany, and who knows what else I've forgotten. Again, I am not meant to have things. It's just that simple.
We came back to the hotel to go back to the Mexican restaurant, but it was full. We were disappointed but knew that we should try someplace new. We went to another local restaurant, which was good as well (but not as good as our beloved Mexican restaurant). Tonight we're going to try to make it an eariler night because tomorrow is another long travel day. We drive down to France and take a ferry over to the UK. I'm not going to lie- REALLY excited for everything to be in English again.
