Lucky Lake Hostel trailer numbers
Kerri and I waiting for our Walk to Wok Chinese food... It was so good we had it three times!
Like I said, its like Disneyland for adults!
The entrance to the Anne Frank house... An incredible experience to say the least.
Cathedral right outside of the Anne Frank house
And again, Disneyland for adults!!!
This building is a mall... the architecture in Europe is just too cool!
The Van Gogh Museum!
There were so many flowers blooming in the city, it was beautiful and smelled great too!
Spring time Tulips in Holland!
More flowers and oodles of bicycles!
SO many people celebrating Queen's Day!
An orange bike in the spirit of Queen's Day!
Slightly immature, I know...
Kendyll, Jessica, and myself trying to cover our heads in the rain storm!
Jessica, Kendyll, and I on the pub crawl...
Kendyll, Nick, and I at a café...
Just the group, minus Nick... From left to right: Drew, Kerri, Jess, Kendyll, Me, and Kiera!
Teasers... Amsterdam's slightly more classy version of Hooters.
Let the festivities begin!
Queen's Day!!!
So, last weekend was my Amsterdam adventure... I went with the same people from my program that I went to Berlin with earlier in the semester. Drew, Kendyll, Kerri, Kiera, Nick, and I all headed to the airport on Thursday morning to catch our 10:00 flight to Eindhoven. We flew in to Eindhoven because it was far cheaper than flying directly to Amsterdam. It wasn't until later that we realized we'd have to take a three hour bus to reach Amsterdam. Oh well. Some time around 15:00 we reached our hostel: good old Lucky Lake. This was another one of the camping experiences, like Camp Tiber in Rome. Jessica (an old friend of mine) met us there and had already set up our cabin. Somehow my reservation for Jessica, Kiera, and I had been messed up so our room got upgraded. It was basically the Taj Mahal compared to the rooms everyone else got. Lucky us! Just as soon as we had arrived at Lucky Lake we departed and were on our way into the city. Our trip was planned around the national holiday, Queen's Day. Basically the day is an excuse for the population of the city to more than double in size, to wear orange, and to get rowdy. We arrived a day in advance and just in time to see the streets start filling up. The entire city was decked out in orange, and there were people everywhere. Seeing Amsterdam was pretty much love at first sight. As we stepped out of the metro stop there were canals, bicycles, flowers, green, cute houses, and cafés everywhere. We spent several hours walking through the streets and preparing ourselves for the festivities to be taking place the next day. We decided to join a pub crawl in honor of Queen's Night. Pub crawls are always the best option when you are trying to save money. Some of the group headed home a little early from the crawl, but the rest of us stayed out and had a great time dancing to music by live DJs in the streets and hitting up some local hot spots. It was also on this day/night that I had my first encounter with the Red Light District, don't worry I won't go into detail... Lets just say it was interesting.
The following morning we woke up early enough to catch the free hostel breakfast and headed into town. I have never seen more people for a single gathering, nor have I seen so much orange in one place. The streets were absolutely packed; it was insane. There were DJs playing on random stages set up in the streets all around town. Everyone seemed to be having the best time. Even with all of the commotion of the holiday I realized that Amsterdam didn't lose its mellowness and I loved that. It was just such a fun and relaxing place even with the hustle and bustle. Everyone in the town rides bicycles; it is apparently the bike capital of the world. So many people ride bikes that the bike lanes are as large as the car lanes, and they have their own traffic signals. After a long and exhausting day of dancing and partying in the streets we hopped on a metro and went back to Lucky Lake.
The next morning we were not moving quite fast enough so we missed our free breakfast. Oops... We decided to spend Saturday sight seeing and trying to get a feel for the city sans Queen's Day festivities. Kendyll, Kiera, Drew, and Nick opted for a visit to the Heineken factory while Jess, Kerri, and I decided to go to the Vincent van Gogh Museum. On our walk to the museum I took in the scenery. There was green and flowers everywhere; it was beautiful. I can now say I have seen spring time tulips in Holland... Incredible. I was so excited to visit the Van Gogh Museum as he is one of my all time favorite artists. After the museum we tried to meet up with the others but failed, so the three of us went to the Anne Frank house. That was another incredible experience. We got to visit the house that she and her family hid out in for two years during WWII. Through the entire tour I kept getting chills. Even though I had read her diary and know quite a bit about her and her family's struggles, seeing the house just made everything seem so much more real. After our sightseeing concluded we had some chinese food at the Walk to Wok (by the way, it was our third visit for the trip... so good!) The rest of the group met us there, and then we all headed back to the hostel.
The next morning we woke up bright and early and basically got screwed, for lack of a better word, by the hostel. The people working at the hostel arranged a special shuttle to take us to the metro stop in the middle of nowhere at 6:00. They told us the metro opened at 6:00. After the shuttle left we read a schedule that said the metro didn't start running until 7:00. That didn't help us at all because we had a bus to catch at 7:15. Luckily a cab passed and we were able catch our bus in time. After traveling for seven straight hours we reached home sweet home, Prague. The trip was a definite success and sooo much fun. As I said I fell in love with Amsterdam. The city vibes, the bikes, and the beautiful flowers just made me so happy. In my travels so far, Amsterdam is the one city I have visited that I could actually picture myself living in. It was amazing. As for this weekend, I am headed to London to visit Jess again. I am super excited and can hardly wait to see the sights as well as the stylish locals. I only have two short weeks left here in Prague and then I am off to Malta. I will be there for roughly three weeks, and then I am meeting my mom in New York City! I will be home on June 13th, and I can't wait to see everyone!
XOXO,
Sarah
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