Monday, February 11, 2019

Amsterdam, Pt. 1

Amsterdam, Netherlands
After Berlin, the next stop on my European trip was Amsterdam, and that's the city I happened to meet up with my sister. I took the train from Berlin to Amsterdam, and somehow managed the Amsterdam metro was well. My sister and I met at the hostel. Since we both arrived around 6pm we decided just to eat at the hotel and just hang out for the night. I honestly don't remember a lot of what happened because I stopped writing things down in Berlin. The next morning we went towards the center because I had been told by two girls in my hostel in Berlin that I should try PANCAKES Amsterdam. It was a pretty popular place, but so good and the pancakes were so filling.
After breakfast we walked towards the Anne Frank house because we wanted to see it and didn't get tickets early enough - you need to order months ahead. The house she hid in are the two buildings below between the trees. The large one to the right with the class wall is the museum part. I know I say this a lot but it was weird seeing it in person. I was a history major and buff so actually seeing places you grew up learning about is just such a surreal feeling. There were so many tourists near the house that my sister and I were over it after about 5 minutes.
Afterwards we did some sightseeing and souvenir shopping. We didn't really have any plans and weren't really sure what to do so we thought we'd just walk around. We ended up around the Van Gogh museum and decided to check it out. You need to buy tickets online and we were having trouble with the wifi at the museum so we ducked into a cafe to get something to drink and use the wifi. About 1:45 we made our way into the museum. I'm not a huge fan of museums, but I enjoyed this one. My knowledge of classical art is very minuscule so my sister and I kept finding ourselves talking about different aspects of his life and trying to connect what we already knew about him.
My sister's friend told her about a brewery that was inside an old windmill, so after walking around the museum we headed to Brouwerij 't IJ. It was kind of confusing trying to figure out where to sit and how it worked, but it was worth it because the beer and snacks were pretty cheap. She'll probably kill me for saying this but we got a meat and cheese plate and we were having the most difficult time trying to cut the meat. When we went to get the second plate we realized we were cutting with the knife upside down. In our defense, though, the knife didn't make sense the way it cut.
After the brewery we headed back out to find the Red Light District just to walk around and see what it was like. It wasn't that exciting and if you're walking in the center of town you'd probably walk through it and not realize it. We stopped in a few places and got some ice cream. We both can't remember if we ate dinner that night or not, so I guess we just went back to our hotel. It was towards evening when we went though so we did a lot more walking than we thought, and I'm an old woman who likes the evening to relax.
Have you been to Amsterdam?

2 comments

  1. I've been told by several people that I would enjoy Amsterdam - your photos are lovely - hopefully I'll see it in person one day ;)

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    Replies
    1. I think you'd enjoy Berlin more, but I guess I don't know you personally. :)

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