Friday, March 6, 2009

6/3/09 Amsterdam

We got down to the airport too early, around 3, when the flight didn’t leave until 6:30. We went through security and then decided to try to sleep for a while. We found some benches without handrails and slept for about an hour. It was an incredibly good nap. I’m becoming way too good at sleeping at airports, an important skill I suppose.

The flight was completely uneventful. I don’t even remember takeoff. I woke up about a second before we touched down. It was about only an hour flight.

We landed and took the train downtown. It was an incredibly gloomy day to start, not how I pictured Amsterdam at all.

We were hungry and were waiting for Brett to come in so we went to a little café outside the train station. I had a pancake with strawberries and cream (my favorite, I know) a croissant with chocolate and a tea. It was a great breakfast, if a little pricey.

We waited around for Brett for a while, which ended up being until around noon and then we all went down to the botel. It was nicer than I expected, the first level is really cool, nice chairs, a TV, breakfast in the morning, and the lady that owns it is really cool.

Our room is tiny, basically enough room for the four bunk beds and a that’s about it. We do have our own bathroom and the shower is surprisingly nice. I got the best bed somehow, up against the windows on the top. It has the most room too. The beds are much nicer than my one at the dorm too.

We went back down by Centraal Station to catch the free three-hour walking tour. The guide was amazing, a college kid from Boston who looked like Vincent Van Gough. He loved Amsterdam and was so excited to tell us about it all. We went through the Red Light District (surprisingly nice), the Jewish Quarter, which he hated because it wasn’t brick like all the rest of it. The city is also filled with canals, it’s one of the nicer cities I’ve been to here, sort of like London, Venice, and Vegas combined. The main mode of transportation here is bike, and they’re literally all over, to the point that I’ve almost been hit a number of times. My favorite aspect of the city besides the canals and brick exteriors is that many of the older houses are built on a slant because the houses are so narrow that the only way to get things into them is to use a pulley system and hoisting them up through the upper window. Crazy.

The tour ended at a café and we all decided to eat there. It was good, I had a baguette with mozzarella, tomato, and pesto, basically what I ordered at DePaul many days. It was great.

I started to fall asleep at the table, as did a number of other people, so we went back to the boat and slept until 7:30. I took a shower and then I wrote this.

We then went down to a coffee shop (people don’t really go there for the coffee) and I went and wandered around the city. At night the place is well light, and it takes on a new atmosphere. I went into the Red Light District, and many of the windows with women in them had a red outline on the outside, the red glow down the entire street sometimes. As I was walking one of the women knocked on the glass to try to get me to come inside. What a crazy world, this happens everyday, it’s normal. It doesn’t go away when I’m not there. For these people, this is their life. I can’t believe I even live in the same world as they do. It was an eye-opener for sure.

I decided to start a ‘pastry crawl’ which consists of me going out and buying pastries every night. I guess I live in a never-ending pastry crawl. First I had a cherry turnover, among the best pasties I’ve had. I went and met up with the group, who were leaving an Asian restaurant. A cat was eating on the table next to them, I think they wanted them to get out of there. We left shortly and went to a bar around the corner. I wasn’t really interested in hanging around there, so I went to one of the pastry shops I saw earlier and bought just about the biggest pastry I’ve ever seen. We’re talking like much bigger than a Big Mac, it was hard to hold in my hand. It was a bun covered in chocolate with a ton of whipped cream in the middle. It was good, but a little too much for me at this point.

I walked back to the boat and called it a night.

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