“This entire planet is home. Staying in one place would be like never leaving your bedroom.”

Hello Readers!

After a full day of Monday classes I was able to end the night with a great group of friends playing cards and enjoying life. This was the perfect way to start the week!

The next day was a pretty slow day to begin with as well. I was able to sleep in and ended up watching Charlie St. Cloud. Later that night I got all fancy and went out to a nice restaurant (Cranton’s) with a friend. The food was amazing and it was so nice to have some more rich food. We ended up staying at the restaurant and talking for a couple hours before going outside to take some photos of the passing cars. The photos that he took turned out pretty cool, but I didnt end up taking any because it was windy and I was in a dress, so I didnt think that was a good combination. Once we were done with photos we headed back to the house and ended up listening to music and hanging out with friends for the rest of the night.

Thursday is the day that we headed to Amsterdam! This weekend we had a four day weekend so Sarah Kaye, Brittany, Isabelle and I all headed to Amsterdam for the weekend.  Our plane didn’t leave until later in the day so Sarah Kaye and I went into the city for her tattoo appointment and then headed to the airport where we met up with the others before flying out. Once we got to Amsterdam we had to take a train to the hostel we were staying at. We asked how to get there and the lady said to take the number 1 or 2 train two stops and we would be there. So, we did that and ended up at the wrong place so we had to run for another train that would take us back to the station we went past. Luckily we had just enough time to get on that one and made it to the next station.

When we got off the train the station still didnt look right, but we followed the signs we were supposed to and sure enough our hostel was right outside! We were staying in the Train Lodge which was a renovated train car. It was right outside of the Sloterdijk station which was very nice to be just out of the city, but still only a 5 minute ride away. Once we found the hostel we checked in and went to Spar, their grocery store, for some food since we traveled over dinner time.

Friday was our first full day in the city. We started the morning with breakfast at Bon Appetit (I had a crepe with nutelle and banana). After we had eaten we were walking around a bit and decided to do a canal cruise which was beautiful. It was a great way to get a look at a part of the city and helped get our mental maps a bit more in check. Later that night Brittany and I played Yahtzee with a guy from Canada who was studying in France and had taken a weekend trip to Amsterdam.

–> One thing that I loved about Amsterdam was that it was very diverse. I believe that I herd at least 5 different languages in just the short time we were there (Dutch, Spanish, English, Italian & French for sure).

Once we were bored with the game we decided to go back into the city for a bit. We didnt really have a plan so we just walked around and got familier with the area.

Saturday we got up and went to Pancake and Waffle which was amazing. After breakfast we took the tram and tired to find Amsterdams biggest market, but didnt have any luck with that so we ended up seeing the I AMsterdam sign before we headed to the Heineken Experience. Once at the HE we went through the whole tour and it was really fun. There was alot of interactive things to do which made for some fun photos and at the end of the tour we got to try the Heineken beer at a rooftop bar which had a lovely view of the city. When we were done there we got some fries at Vlaamse Frites and headed back to give our feet a break. A bit later we all went back into town and wandered for a bit before calling it a night.

The next day was a very busy day! We started the morning at the Rembrand Museum. The who museum and galary was incredible. The art work they had was amazing. After walking around for a while and taking in all of the breathtaking work we headed to the Ice Bar. It really is just as it sounds, a bar made of ice. It was really cool (no pun intended). Being from Minnesota I am pretty used to the freezing cold so the tempurature didnt really bother us all, however, after about 15 minutes almost everyone else cleared out. When we were done there we were all hungry so we stopped at New York Pizza before heading to the Anne Frank house.

Since we didnt book our ticked ahead of time we ended up standing in line for an hour and a half which was pretty quick considdering it is usually a 3+ hour wait. Before going into this museum I really didnt know much about Anna Frank, but I can say that after going through I know a lot more! After we went through there we walked around for a bit more, but were all pretty tired from the day so we called it a early night and went back to the train to just hang out and relax.

–> I know that I usually write on Sunday, but we were in Amsterdam until Monday so I pushed it back a day so that I would be able to write about everything I did.

Monday was a slow day. The morning was rainy and yucky out so it made it hard to do really anything. Brittany and I went to Pancake and Waffle for breakfast and then did some souvenir shopping and just walked around the different shops trying to avoid the rain. After a while though it did clear up a bit and we ended up finally finding the market we had been trying to find the day before. We walked through that and saw lots of food, clothes, jewelry, and many other products, but we had no more room to buy anything so that saved us a lot of money.

Later on in the day we met one of my friends from my hometown, Abby Dennis, who is studying in Amsterdam, for dinner. I was really fun to catch up with her and a funny coincidence that she was there the same time we were. Once we said goodbye we headed to the airport and flew home.

After a long weekend of new and exciting adventures I am happy to be back in my bed.

Talk to you soon 🙂