Day 53: I-Am-sterdam

Friday - July 9, 2010:

More traveling! I'm crossing off countries left and right this summer. Where to now? The city of Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

My knowledge of Amsterdam does not extend past the fact that it is coincidentally the name of my favorite restaurant in Auburn, Alabama. But after a little research, Amsterdam has a lot more going on than I thought! Yes, according to our European travel book, it is home to Anne Frank's house, the Heinekein Brewery, the Van Gogh Museum and some pretty notable markets. So with less than 48 hours in this Dutch-speaking city (I feel a language barrier coming on), we are going to have to power through any inkling of tiredness or stress!

After a very intense Thursday evening, I didn't know if I'd make it to the airport. By some absolute miracle I managed to pack my carry on (I have a bad feeling that I forgot something...), semi-finish my homework (I work better under pressure... aka Sunday night before it's due Monday) and get everything else ready to go. Our taxi was coming at 7:10 a.m, so I had to make sure I had everything ready.

This leg of the trip we are flying an airline called Easy Jet because Ryan Air doesn't fly to Amsterdam (so sad, I'm sure they'll miss us) and it flies out of the main Fumicino Airport in Rome, which is about an hour away with traffic. We made it to the terminal safely and since we aren't checking bags we could go on back to the gates. We glided right through security and found us somewhere to sit because our flight didn't leave for another hour and a half. We sat down, some people got second breakfasts, and let time pass until 10:00.

Around 10:00 we all meander up to the gate to wait in line for boarding. Well we hadn't even been in line 10 minutes and a lady's voice comes on the overhead speakers and, when she finishes, everyone starts yelling and sprinting down the terminal! What?! We have no clue what's going on because the message was in Italian, so we just grab our belongings and follow the crowd. Apparently our flight had a gate change! Now everyone is pushing and shoving, trying to get their good spot in line (because Easy Jet doesn't believe in assigning seats either...). We wait here until we start boarding. We got on our bright orange plane, all found seats relatively close to each other and prepared ourselves for our two hour flight across Europe.

It was a much more normal and pleasant flying experience compared to Ryan Air, I have to say. It's still no Delta or any American airline, but it wasn't too shabby for the European puddle-jumpers.

{Lindsey and Becca ready for the flight}

{And some girls sleeping through it...}

Easy Jet got us to Amsterdam safely (phew, another plane ride success) and without the usual confusion found on Ryan Air. We all got off the plane and were shocked to realize that it's a lot hotter than we expected... faaaantastic. Oh well! We breeze through the exit, loving that we don't have to waste time at baggage claim, and make it to the outside world. We buy our train tickets for Sunday morning, trying to stay on the safe side, and grab a quick pick-me-up (aka Diet Coke on ice for SK... I haven't had one in 5 days... I was quite proud). Since there are 11 of us, we split into two cabs that took us to our hotel. Our cab driver was a young Dutch-native and he was a riot -- I couldn't believe half the things he was telling us!

{In the taxi -- of course Becca found Starbucks. I swear the girl has a built-in radar for it}

{Lindsey and I in the taxi}

The taxi dropped us off and we checked into our pink and purple hotel. Our hotel is not in what I would call prime location, but it is brand new and really nice! Definitely the nicest we've stayed so far.

We run up to our rooms, throw our bags down and run back to the lobby because it's 3:30 and we're trying to make the 4:00 bike tour! Because we were in such a time crunch and the bike tour was the only thing on the schedule for the day, we take taxis to the place so we get there in time. Definitely the way to go because it only ended up being 3,50 Euro and we had 5 minutes to spare!

{This is what displayed on the TV in our room when we walked in -- how special did we feel? A little step up from the hostels we've been staying in...}

{Our room! Look at all the space!}

{A street in Amsterdam}

At Mike's Bike Tour we are greeted by a woman dressed in cut-off cargo shorts, a cut-off Mike's Bike Tour shirt and a head full of dreads that hang to her lower back! Welcome! She is absolutely hysterical, her name is Petra and she ends up being our guide for the ride. She starts off with a brief history of Amsterdam and here's all I can remember:

• Amsterdam is only 800 years old
• It was created by putting a dam on the Amstel River (Amstel River Dam... hence the name of the city! The Dutch are real original in naming)
• It's population is about 800,000....
• But there are about 1.2 million bikes in Amsterdam. It's a major biking city!

So Petra finishes up and gives us our bikes for the day. I get a low-rider and I was loving it (I'm officially bringing a bike back to Auburn with me this year)! We get going and off we stroll through the cobblestone streets of Amsterdam!

Ya'll. This place is SO CUTE! Who knew? It's a canal city, so there are canals running all along the roads and all kinds of boats trolling through the waters. There are also house boats (something I want to bring back to Guntersville Lake for sure). I am in love with it -- and since most people here ride bikes, the roads are smaller and less crowded. I should also mention that the houses are all adorable. There wasn't one that I looked at and didn't say "I want to live there". I kept trying to spy inside!

The bike tour took us all over Amsterdam -- we covered the whole map! We saw everythingggg. Everything from the outside of Anne Frank's house to the old churches of Amsterdam, the Red Light District (that's a whole other story.... breaks my heart), Museumplein, this beautiful park where everyone was hanging out... I'm telling you -- we saw it all! I can't even pick a favorite part. Actually, that's a lie. The park might have been my favorite... it was just so chill and so relaxing.

{Lindsey's birthday is Sunday and so she got the special flower on her bike handles!}

{Check out Petra's bedazzled bike -- that's one sweet ride}

{And Anna Curl is off!!}

{Katherine off on her low-rider}

{First stop outside of Museumplein}

{Behind head shot of Meg! I couldn't take as many of these as I did in Barcelona because I had to keep my eye on the road--it was a tricky task riding in Amsterdam!}

{Just cruising the streets...}

{In the park -- I loved it!}

{Katherine and Lindsey taking a rest break}

{World Cup fever!!!! Orange was EVERYWHERE!}

{A boat cruising down the canal in Amsterdam... I was seriously wishing I was on one. If I had known, we would have for sure rented a boat or tried to get on a boat some way... because everybody looked like they were having the best, most relaxing time on the canal}

{Some of the group}

{Amsterdam was so pretty! Pleasantly surprised with the city}

{And off we go again...}

{I thought this was interesting -- the hallways and staircases are so narrow in Amsterdam apartments that moving furniture in/out is an impossible task. So to solve this issue, they put hooks like this one on the roof of every house and build big windows into the front of houses, so big furniture is hauled up outside the house and in through the windows using a pulley system. Isn't that cool? And it would be bad day for your downstairs neighbor if it's a windy day, so Amsterdam fixed this problem by building houses that slant forward as they go up, so when stuff is blown, it won't hit the house. Smart thinking!}

{More soccer paraphernalia!!! Fan frenzyy!!}

{Petra's bike again}

{A big wooden clog!! P.S. Holland is another name for Amsterdam... I didn't know this until the trip}

{An even bigger wooden clog}

{A typical street view in Amsterdam}

{I thought this was hysterical -- two guys had just pulled up their couch to the edge of the canal and we're straight chillin. Gotta love the life in Amsterdam!}

{Houseboat!! Guntersville Lake better watch out...}

{See that big windmill in the background? Ok well there is a brewery underneath there and that's where we stop later for a drink}

{Some of the group on the bridge}

{Meg and I sitting on the bank of the canal at the brewery}

{Watching the boats...}

Our tour ended at 7:30, and we thought we'd go straight to dinner afterwards. Since I'm a girl that's all about reccommendations, we asked Petra where to dine for the evening. She was kind enough to point us two blocks down to her favorite mexican restaurant -- Los Plinos. Of course we take her up on it! So we head that way and, once we found it, we all sit down at the bar to eat. It was the coolest restaurant -- it was typical Amsterdam, in my opinion. I think of Amsterdam as one big hippie, chill, college town (even though I'm sure that's not accurate -- it's just my very general opinion), and this mexican restaurant fit the bill. So we ate dinner, which was the best mexican we've had this summer (though it is still no $5 dinner from Durangos or Little Rosies).

{We survived Mike's Bike Tour!}

{Dinner at the bar at Los Plinos}

Once we were stuffed enough, we decided to walk back to the hotel and enjoy Amsterdam. It doesn't get dark until like 10:00 here, so we could still see everything in all of it's Amsterdam glory :)

{I'm obsessed with these canals... I think I took a picture of every one}

{Some of us wandering the streets after dinner}

{Traffic jam in the canal!}

{All of the stoops in Amsterdam had these tall, pretty flowers growing outside of them}

{The sun is finally starting to go down in Amsterdam around 9:30...}