I Amsterdam!

I don´t even know where to begin about this past weekend! From start to finish it was a blast…

My roommate and I left Thursday afternoon for the airport. After we watched the airport personnel battle a near flight cancelling conundrum (they messed up the terminals and it took about 8 suits to figure out what to do…) we were in the air. First experience on ryanair….no reclining seats, one bag no personal item. This was only the beginning of our trains, planes, and automobiles weekend. We landed in Brussels, met up with a friend coming in from Italy, hopped a bus, switched to a train. Somewhere near Rotterdam there was an accident on the tracks and we had to switch trains again. Thankfully when we finally made it to Amsterdam our hostel was within walking distance.

We stayed at Durty Nelly´s hostel which was the bomb. It had an awesome location and the staff was great. We checked in and went up to our closet, I mean room, that had four bunk beds and one bathroom. There were four other people staying in the hostel with us. We woke up early in the morning and headed out on a walking tour around Amsterdam. We went started in Dam Plaza, and we passed by a church (of course).  Out in front of the church in the cobblestone there was street art. It was a bronze set of breasts with a hand over one of them. The piece had been placed there anonymously at night and the police had removed it shortly after. However the locals liked the piece and requested it to be put back, and so it was.

We went through the Red Light district of course, which we were staying very close to. Not much to say about that, and so much at the same time. It was crazy to see.  

The tour brought us by a huge building where squatters were. It reminded me a little bit of Lisbon, because the side of the building was completely covered in art/graffiti. Our tour guide also mentioned that the Dutch are the tallest people per capita in the world. It was definitely noticeable, especially coming from Spain where I usually tower over everyone. Other highlights of the tour were seeing Rene Descartes´house. The tour guide told a story of how for two days, Amsterdam stood up to the Nazis. The Nazis had been patrolling the Jewish district in Germany and were arresting and brutalizing Jewish people on a Sunday when the majority of the town was out to go to the Jewish markets. Seeing the truth, Amsterdam led a two day revolt against the Nazis. Many died and it was unsuccessful, but it was the first protest against the Nazis. The tour ended conveniently right in front of the Anne Frank house.

We went inside and the house was so moving. Walking up the tiny stairs and seeing all the rooms is so hard to describe. There were parts of Anne´s diary all throughout the house, telling of how she longed to be outside and laugh and play, how she feared for her life, the days when they weren´t allowed to speak, how they showered once a week with the curtains drawn, how they got their food. I did not know that Anne´s father had survived the Holocaust. He helped renovate and open the house up and wanted it to be a launching place for people everywhere to stand up for human rights. There were videos of Otto Frank speaking of his discovery of his daughter´s diary, how he had no idea how deep her thoughts were and her observations. At the very end there was a quote of Anne from her diary that said,

 "I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to G-d for this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear; my courage is reborn. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write anything great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?"

The display was of all the languages that Anne Frank´s diary was published in.

There was a minor incident which required a three hour detour to the hospital (not for me, nothing serious…if anything, much entertainment came from that) and we went out on a pub crawl that night. It was so much fun, and let us see so much of Amsterdam at night…and early morning. On Saturday we were supposed to leave for Brussels, but we decided to leave at night instead of the morning. We went to the Heineken factory, which was AWESOME. It showed the history of the beer, and the process that it still undergoes. We were able to see all the ingredients, help brew it, bottle it, and even make a music video (hahahahah in DUTCH). It was really fun and very worth it.

We headed to the Van Gogh museum from there, and were extremely exhausted. It was cool to see, but we didn´t spend much time. I did learn about Van Gogh though. He only painted for about 8 years, and in those 8 years he had 900 paintings and 1100 drawings. The Van Gogh museum contains 200 of those paintings (not Starry Night obviously, that’s in New York…which we were unaware of). He suffered from multiple illnesses and even had himself committed into hospitals at times. He died at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

Right outside the Van Gogh was the ´´I Amsterdam´´ sign we had been searching for all weekend...score! Good photo op for the last few hours we spent in Amsterdam.

Late Saturday night we hopped a train to Brussels, which is a whole different world compared to Amsterdam. Instead of a night life with bars and women, we saw monuments and markets. After another planes, trains, automobiles, and accidents we checked into our hostel very late Saturday night. Sunday we had a list of things to see and set out, with a bus back to the airport at 230. We managed to get Belgian waffles in Belgium…SO GOOD. I had my chocolate and strawberry covered waffle for breakfast. We also went to a statue called Manneken Pis. It is a statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain….I still have to google the story on that one. We walked through a little market in a square near our hostel, and made it to the bus.

I can´t BELIEVE how much we managed to pack into one weekend, it was my favorite trip so far! Everyone was so friendly and helpful everywhere we went. There was so much to do and see and experience, and we definitely did as much as we could. I´ll put pictures up soon!

My friend Beth is studying abroad in France and is coming to visit this weekend….SOOO EXCITEDD YAYAYY…soon enough it´ll be spring break and i´ll be off to London and the Canary Islands…it´s going by too fast!