A weekend in Amsterdam!

Amsterdam was a blast! We had a lot of traveling and a couple of unlucky complications on the way there (the highway was flooded on our way to Madrid causing us to almost miss our flight, and our plane to Brussels was delayed because the French were on strike), but we eventually made it. Amsterdam is such an awesome city... we got in on Friday night and found out that our hostel was located right in the middle of the red light district. It was a Christian hostel and was a lot nicer than I was expecting... we even got free breakfast! We spent the first night walking around the red light district and checking out a couple of the coffee shops. The red light district is pretty crazy... it's so bizarre/disturbing to see prostitutes standing in their doors waiting for customers. We ate dinner at a really good restaurant, and all of us took advantage of the American food they served (you can't get good hamburgers in Sevilla)! Afterwards we walked around the city some more, and at the end of the night we went to a coffee bar and got hot chocolate..... little did we know it would become our obsession for the weekend. Literally, Amsterdam has the best hot chocolate I have ever had.

The next day some of us got up early to go to the Anne Frank house, while others slept in. I definitely chose to go, and it was an experience that I'll never forget. I don't have any pictures of the inside of the house (we weren't allowed to take any), but it was really interesting to see how they were able to hide 8 people inside without anyone knowing for quite some time. There were videos, different items that belonged to the people in hiding, and quotes from Anne's diary that were pasted on the walls around the house. We also got to see the actual diary which was cool. It was pretty depressing, but at the same time it was neat to see how a young girl could be so inspirational while going through something as difficult as she did.

After Anne Frank's house, we met up with the rest of the group and walked to the Van Gogh museum... my absolute favorite part of the trip. I was the navigator of the group (pause for laughter). The museum was about 25 minutes from our hostel, but I liked the walk because we got to see different parts of Amsterdam. Once we got to the museum, we waited in line for about 10 minutes and finally got in. The museum was really cool because next to each painting was a story or a description of why he painted that particular piece. It made the museum a lot more interesting and made me appreciate each painting a lot more. That was probably my favorite art museum I have been to ever..... but we'll see if that changes once I go to the Prado in Madrid!

We also went to the Heineken brewery where we went on a tour called "The Heineken Experience." We had big expectations for this after hearing from several people that it was a really good time, but it ended up being not that great. It was neat to see the factory, but we were expecting a little more out of it (especially since it cost 15 euro!). Afterwards we went to a coffee shop for a while before heading home... we played a little bit of cards in the hostel (I know, we're such party animals...), and went to bed so we could get up early to walk around again before leaving.

The weather wasn't the greatest in Amsterdam as it was pouring the entire weekend we were there... this was unfortunate for me because the soles of my boots decided to fall apart this weekend. I didn't bring any other pairs of shoes because I didn't bring a lot of luggage, so I walked around with broken shoes and soaking wet feet all weekend. It was totally worth it though! Thankfully one of my friends brought a pair of shoes that I changed into at the airport. We had another extremely long traveling day (literally... 25 hours, including spending the night on the floor of the airport) before returning to Sevilla. We were glad to get back after a very long, but fun and memorable weekend. Home sweet home...




Picture #1: Picture of a river between streets in Amsterdam
Picture #2: Me standing in front of the "i am amsterdam" sign
Picture #3: Me!
Picture #4: View of the street across from Anne Frank's house
Picture #5: My friends and I inside the Anne Frank museum
Picture #6: Me at the Heineken brewery