AMSTERDAM

I'm in love.

Don't worry, its with a city.

I am absolutely obsessed with Amsterdam! I spent Thursday until Saturday there with 3 other girls, Jessica, Emily and Diana.

Here is a short summary of my trip.

THURSDAY...
I got to Amsterdam around 12 and after getting all situated at the airport we got a cab to our hostel. Our hostel for the first night was a Christian Youth Hostel, with single sex dorms and a 2 oclock curfew in the middle of the Red Light District. We went to sleep shortly after getting checked in.


FRIDAY....
We spent a few hours in the morning getting a new hostel situation all worked out and moved ourselves into the Globe, a hostel with a 24 hour bar underneath it (nice change from the Christian Youth Hostel)

The first thing we did after getting checked in was go to the Anne Frank Huis. It was incredible. No cameras were allowed, but I did manage to get a picture of the bookcase that hid the stairway to the "secret annex".


The musuem was unreal and it was hard to believe that 8 people lived in that small space for 2 years...never going outside, not seeing your friends, it had to have been awful. In the musuem you walk through the whole building, you get to walk through the rooms they lived in, there were videos in various rooms telling about live in this tiny apartment, there were quotes from the book all over the walls, and at the end there was a room that told about the fates of all 8 people. This was the saddest part of the whole thing (obviously) and it was even more sad because Anne died only a month before her camp was libertated.

“One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we will be people again and not just Jews! We can never be just Dutch, or just English, or whatever. We will always be Jews as well. But then, we’ll want to be.” – April 9, 1944.

Ok, on to happier things. After the musuem we had lunch and decided to go to the wax musuem!! You can't even believe all the famous people I met....
Now this guy was like our "guide" through the musuem, he told us all about Hollands history and all that, I thought he was a little creepy
I jammed out with Bob (contrary to popular belief, hes alive and well as you can see in the picture)
Me and Michael (yea Steve, I practiced my moon walking with the man himself)
JT. enough said (way cuter in person)
Brad kept hitting on all of us, I kept trying to tell him to stop bc Angelina was right there but he didnt listen
I asked Julia for a picture for you, Ash.
us and Mona
creepy "guide" again
little pirate boy! There was a "haunted house" type part of the musuem, where people jumped out at you and stuff, but it was a PIRATE HAUNTED HOUSE! As you can imagine, i ABSOLUTELY loved it!!!!

After that we got french fries with mayonasie on them (it sounds gross but everyone in Holland eats them!)

and they were WONDERFUL and we went on a canal tour....


A lot of people in Amsterdam live on houseboats! The boats have electricity and plumbing! The canals are lined with houseboats, its really cool
Houses in Amsterdam have such narrow staircases that they have to move everything in through the windows, so every house has a hook at the top that they use to haul everything up
Gorgeous view of the canal

Once the canal tour ended we were exhausted and went back to the hostel to get ready to go out and relax for a little bit. Jessica and I decided to try to wash our hair over the shower, but not get into the shower. This lead to 30 minutes of us cracking up, trying to wash our hair.

Once we were all ready we set out for dinner. We ate at a cute little pizza place, and had dessert at the BEST pastry shop I have ever been too (and trust me, I've been to quite a few in my day). We got a chocolate covered crossiant, DELICIOUS, but it didnt even compare to the waffle, covered in chocolate and carmalized sugar, topped with whipped cream and strawberries, to die for (and healthy, I know).

After dinner we went out and had a fabulous night. We met 2 Irish girls and 8 English boys that we hung out for the night. And at the end of the night a group of about 9 Irish boys who were staying on floor in the hostel came in and hung out.


SATURDAY....
We mostly just wandered around the city until our plane left at night....some pictures from the park we went to...


And some pictures from just walking around.....





And last, just some few pictures from the weekend....
WARNING:::some of the pictures are slightly inappropriate....
my favorite part of the Red Light District...
I was molested by some street performers dressed as death....we had to avoid that plaza for the rest of the day...
EVERYONE rides bikes there, its very dangerous to cross the streets there, you have to watch out for bikers
inappropriate shapes made out of chocolate, it reminded me of inappropriate pasta Kristen and I saw in Palermo.

The trip was amazing, I had the BEST time.

If I don't come home in June, this is where you can find me.