Amster-damn!

I leave for Barcelona in about 12 hours, so I'm trying to bang this out before I leave.

Ok, so John got a call on Wednesday night from Dali and Hannah saying that we were gonna sleep over Dali's house and leave for the airport the next morning. So I had about 20 minutes to shower and pack, and it was a little hectic, but I managed to pack everything I needed.

On the way to Dali's, we went through "The Magic Roundabout," which is the biggest tourist attraction in Swindon, haha. It's 5 circles all attached together. No one has any idea how to navigate it, so they just drive through it pretty much.

We ate take-out Indian food at Dali's house, which was delicious. Unfortunately I got a little Indian food on my sweatshirt, which I was planning to use as a jacket for the next 3 days! Dali took pity on me, and gave me an old jacket of his to wear for the weekend. The jacket has German flag patches on the sleeves, so I jokingly referred to myself as Hans throughout the trip. I should also note that the Indian food stain is still in my sweatshirt, despite several washings. The lesson: don't spill Indian food on yourself!

Dali's father made us a delicious English breakfast next morning. While we were cleaning up, we noticed that Dali's next door neighbors have a few trailers in the back of their house:

It turns out Dali lives next to real life pikies! (aka gypsies) And according to Dali and Hannah, they speak exactly like Brad Pitt does in Snatch. I asked if their neighbors liked "dags", but they weren't sure. They said they were very nice people though.

So we drove into London Gatwick, which is an absolutely gigantic airport. We finally got into Amsterdam some time in the late afternoon. The first thing we saw was a crazy couple playing songs for everyone walking by. Then we checked in to our hostels. Dali and Hannah, and Katelyn and John got hotel rooms, but I stayed in the hostel where most of the guys from TCNJ were staying. I didn't know any of them well before hand, but I do now!

We ran into them on the way to checking into my hostel. There's Kip, Sandro, Justin, Salge, Jason, and Connor. They all came on their fall break, and went to Dublin and Prague beforehand. Also, there's Nicole (also from TCNJ) and Ashley, who both study with Katelyn in Italy, and Rachel, who lives in Newcastle, but studied at TCNJ for a semester last year. There were also some German folks who joined us later - I remember Alex's name, who studied abroad at TCNJ, but the rest escape me. I think that's just about everyone - so we had quite a big crew of people.

After I checked in, first on the list of priorities was food. I had a hamburger:

It was more like a big mess on a plate, but it was a delicious mess. I forgot the Dutch put mayonnaise on everything.

It was already dark by the time we left the restaurant, so we left the sightseeing for Friday and Saturday. We ended up going to a coffee shop for a while, which had this delicious juice called Looza, and then we walked down the red light district.

The red light district is a crazy place...everywhere there are prostitutes standing in windows, beckoning for you to come in. It's sad. There's live sex shows everywhere, along with sex museums, shops, and anything else you can think of. It's the kind of place you feel dirty after coming out of.

The next day was a lot of sight seeing. I was nervous I was going to lose everyone, because I was staying in a different room of the hostel, so I woke up very early. I should mention that the hostel was quite dirtier then other ones I had stayed at. The "locker" that I rented was a big barrel, like the kinds you see that hold toxic waste. No matter how quiet you tried to be, you always were waking people up when you came in at night, because there was 18 people to a room and the barrels were loud. Also, the bathrooms were pretty gross.

I managed to meet up with Ashley and Nicole, and we were going to try to meet up with everyone, but we got split up because Ashley needed coffee. We went to Dam square to meet with everyone, but everyone had already left without us! We managed to find John and Katelyn, and later Dali and Hannah. We made our way to the Heineken Experience:

Inside is a magical place. Interspersed between giant kegs of Heineken, Heineken drumsets, vintage Heineken advertisements, Heineken virtual ridesand Heineken gift shops are Heineken bars. For the price of admission, you get 3 free drinks and a bottle opener.


After a while at the Heineken Experience, we went looking for a good place to eat lunch. We found a place named after me:


There we tried a traditional dutch food called Bitterballen, which was meat and cheese deep fried in a ball. I also had this delicious beer called Grimbergen:

Afterwards, we went to the Van Gogh museum, who spent much of his life in Amsterdam. His paintings were beautiful - Starry Night was in another museum, but some of his sunflower paintings were there, and Wheat Field with Crows, which was his last work. One of my favorites was the Potato Eaters, which was a depressing view of life in a peasant family. It took us quite a while to get through the museum, which had an extensive collection. At the end, they had the piece of his ear that he cut off on display, in a glass box. (Just kidding)

Afterwards, we went to a coffee shop. The TCNJ guys split off to go to Anne Frank house, which we ended up doing the next day. At night, we went for traditional Dutch food:

steak, pork, chicken, I think they even threw some fish in there: it had everything. It was all salty delicious!

After dinner, we met back up with the TCNJ gang and went to another coffee shop:

I'd say approximately 50% of shops in Amsterdam have a cat. The one in this coffee shop had a stare down with me:

I swear that cat was giving me the evil eye.

The next day we went to the Anne Frank house. It was quite depressing, but good nonetheless. It was actually a warehouse, and they managed to stay undetected in the upper levels for two years before they were betrayed. No one knows who betrayed them.

The two couples rented bicycles and rode them around. In Amsterdam, everyone rides bicycles, and every road has separate paths for bicycles, trams, and cars. It makes it very nerve-wracking to cross the road! Also, the train stations are surrounded with racks upon racks of bicycles...they say if you keep a bike in Amsterdam for longer then a year, you are very fortunate.

I stayed with Ashley and Nicole, and we walked to a coffee shop, which was probably the highlight of my trip. A British man showed us how to roll cigarettes properly, using only your hands (so that you could do it standing up). We sat and talked to him around some couches, where we met the craziest person in the world:


I asked him what his name was, and he told me his name was James Bond 007. I asked him where he was from, because we couldn't figure out his accent, but he would only say "Happyville." Happy was his favorite word, and he used it often. He didn't know many other English words, I don't think.

If you didn't notice, you can write anything anywhere in that coffee shop. If any of my friends from Brick are reading this, don't worry: we are now represented in Amsterdam. Happy lent me a marker, and I put "BTBD" down on the coffee table. Happy.

Happy kept giving the girls strange items from his magic knapsack (he told us it was magic; he also told us English is a magical language). When we asked him to take a picture, he gave me his magic knapsack, and started to walk away. Ashley thought he was bartering with us and was going to walk off with her camera, but he was just trying to find the best angle:


Great job 007. Happy.

After a while, we regrettably had to leave 007 behind. We had other business to attend to.

We had a big group dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was good, but I was a little disappointed with the portions. We took a group picture outside:

It was Dali's 22nd birthday! We went for drinks, and to a nearby coffee shop. We sat outside, and had a good chat with a guy who was kind of like the bouncer, I suppose. He said that we were so much fun, that it was like a commercial for people to come inside and join. We tried to get him to join us, but he politely refused. After a long while, we headed back, but not before getting some delicious Chipsy King.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of me with my Chipsy King, so I've posted this one of Katelyn just to illustrate the sheer magnitude. Also, please try to note the mayonnaise AND ketchup on top, making a mixture of sheer fried bliss.

The next morning was a sad goodbye to our Tcnj friends, who had to return home for classes. After seeing them off to the airport, we decided to go to a nearby sex museum, which was quite risque:

The one with the eyes farts at unsuspecting passerbys. After a walk around, we headed over to a riverboat to do a canal tour. Amsterdam is famous for its canals. I forget how many bridges the tourguide said there were in Amsterdam, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the 200+ range. Here's one of the more scenic ones:


After our tour, we went back to a coffee shop for a bit. They had a very sarcastic menu (you'll probably have to click it in order to read it):

They also had an interesting poster of Ronald Reagen:

After the coffee shop, we headed for one last trip down the red light district:

And then we headed to the airport. Me, John, Hannah, Dali, and Rachel all flew into Cardiff on the same flight, but Connor had to spend a night in Schiphol airport:

I'm not sure how that's pronounced, but I assume it's like Sheeple. Everyone follows people around in there; no one makes a decision for themselves.

And that was that for Amsterdam. Dali's sister picked us up at the airport, and we all packed into her car and made it back to Bristol bleary-eyed and tired.