Amsterdam!

Amsterdam

Well we're officially back from the Netherlands. Sorry I didn't post while mid-vacation, I put my laptop in the safe...for safe keeping! Anywayyy...we arrived on our easyjet flight around 7:30pm (6:30 UK time) and it was still bright as day outside. The weather was much warmer than Oxford weather (did you know Oxford is the only place in the UK where the climate is continually colder than the rest of the country, even London is a few degrees warmer year round)Anywhoo, we got on the tram and headed over to our awesome hostel. We had to go across the street to the coffee house to get the manager to let us in...weird.

We checked in and went for dinner right away, we had been traveling for over five hours (from Oxford to the airport was 2.5 hours, waiting in the airport was another 2 hours, traveling from the Amsterdam airport to the hostel...you get the point) So we ate at the "Everything 5 Euro" Italian restaurant.
Classy right ?!!?!
I got Hawaiian pizza and it was not too bad.
That night we just walked around to get a feel for the place. We sat at a nice outdoor bar and discussed philosophy among other random topics. We sort of passed out really early (Mary and I) so the guys went for a walk while we went to bed. The hostel was really nice, it felt like a loft in SoHo except with bunkbeds.

The next morning we headed over to the Pancake Corner (a popular pancake chain in Amsterdam akin to IHOP) I was told by my dutch kibbutz friends to eat a pancake in Holland because they are the best...well Gerrit,Anita,Ben and Hannah...you are right! I had a junior apple pancake and ate it with Hollands finest non-maple syrup....

After breakfast (it was raining when we entered the restaurant but sunny when we left!) we walked over to the redlight district...just to see what all the hubub was about.



Well kids, let me tell you...seeing the red light district during the day is wayyyyy different than seeing it at night. You see, during the day they put the fuglys (fat and ugly prostitutes)in the window, it was like a haunted house. Especially because we were unprepared to see them. We were simply minding our own business, taking a shortcut through a pub when all of a sudden we looked to our left and there was this old woman in a bra and underwear sitting spread eagle on a chair in a windowbox thing.Scary stuff, uncomfortable and scary stuff!

A few minutes later we wandered into a beautiful (and colorful) church, very Dutch (from the architecture to the color scheme and wood carvings, it was so ...well Dutch) Well, after we exited the church we glanced over at the canal and...well just watch...

Well, it may not be thattt clear what this guy was doing, (he was yelling stuff in Dutch) but he played wedding music on his boat music machine and everyone clapped so we assumed it was a wedding or ceremony of some sort.

After the churchboat event, Mary and I wanted to shop a bit so we walked over to the FIRST H&M EVER!! That's us, semi-posing, that woman behind us clearly unaware of the supermodels in her presence. We also did a little souvenier shopping, I got a deck of cards to go along with my new collection and some magnets for our house next semester. Honestly, it was all crap...tourist crap, though I really wanted a pair of wooden shoes, I don't think I could've fit them in my suitcase.

That afternoon we found a giant chess game comencing and decided to watch for a bit.

We went for dinner at the comedy club cafe and enjoyed some nachos and cheese in addition to some good belgium beer.

After the show we walked around Vondelpark and laid in the grass for a bit watching all the bicycles pass by...it was still light outside at 10:30 PM! I felt like I was in Alaska during the summer (even though I've never been to Alaska during the summer).

After the park we walked over to our neighborhood, watched some street performers play some music and then headed off the bed.

This post is long so I'm going to make it into a two parter....get ready...