Oh Amsterdam. Where to begin?
Day 1
I guess the highlight of the train ride to Amsterdam had to have been when we were comparing our different Belgian chocolates and Allison offered to show what her piece looked like…only to realize it was already in her month. We definitely had a good laugh or two after that.
Other notable happens on the train ride include the announcement to beware of thieves that came half way through the train ride and the reduced speed due to the storm, though the sky was clear. By the time we got into Amsterdam we were anxious to see what our Hostelboat had in store for us.
After wandering the piers long enough to come across a boat with the name ‘Anna Maria II’ we wondered if we’d found our home for the next 3 nights. After standing in front of boat for a few minutes confused as to whether or not this was the right boat we ask the man and he just pointed to the sign like ‘duh’ this is it.
But, lucky for you that’s not even the best part. You see we had the pleasure of staying in the largest room on the boat the catch being that it had it’s own separate entrance…so basically if we need to shower or take a comfort break we had to exit our room, walk across the boat and use the main entrance to do so….it actually wasn’t as bad as it seemed, expect the one night i had to get up in the middle to the next for a potty break and had to walk across the boat alone at night….but, I survived.
Ok, enough about the boat. We headed to check out the town and pick up an extra layer as the wind was insane. And then I had my very first…… coffee. It was really good too! And now I’m really into it so go me. From there we went for some dinner at a Mexican place because we had coupons for free tequila shots. How could we not?
Let just say it was a dinner full of laughs. But as we walked through the red light district on the way back we were anything but laughing. It was a chilling experience and sadly, it was exactly as I pictured it would be. The worst part was we even saw someone go inside….
Day 2
We started with breakfast on the boat where we met the owner, Dave’s, wife and baby girl. She was adorable. From there we headed into some bi-polar weather. It was raining then hailing then sunny but we made it to the infamous ‘I Amsterdam’ letters and proceeded to take a bunch of pics with the letters. Which aren’t actually as big as they look in pictures.
Then we headed to the Heineken Experience, which was wayyyyy better than Guinness. It was a great time, like who knew you could have so much fun at a museum. If you want to know the details about our Heineken Experience ask me about it sometime, lol.
Later that day we had our must anticipated pizza cruise. We, or at least I, had been looking forward to it ever since we booked the ticket. And honestly the ride and views of the city from the canals were better than the pizza. It was relaxing and perfect and I loved seeing the city from the water.
Day 3
Day 3’s agenda included a visit to the Ann Frank house. So we headed there with our fingers crossed that the line/wait wouldn’t be to long. Well, 2.5hours later standing in the freezing cold and wind we finally made it in only to find out that the house wasn’t heated. But hey, we made it inside so it was quite the test of our patience.
The house and the whole experience was a lot different than I thought it would be. Actually as most things this trip have been. I thought walking through it would be a lot more eerie and dark than it actually was. I also don’t think I ever read the Diary of Ann Frank so I didn’t have much context.
The space itself was quite big, I didn’t realize how much space they had considering they were in hiding. It was also weird to think that at a time people were hiding there, I felt like I couldn’t touch anything because it wasn’t mine.
I was glad I got to inside and experience it for myself, it was a very introspective thing as it should be.
We didn’t do much more after that, we grabbed lunch and warmed up and after wandering a bit more we grabbed some take away and headed back to the boat.
We survived staying on the Hostelboat and it actually ended up being quite fun. It you ever go to Amsterdam, I’d recommend it, even if you only spend one night.
Cheers.
~meesh
P.S. picture captions to come, other pics here
just meesh 