Amsterdam Fun

Friday I had a fabulous day walking around and exploring Amsterdam by myself while Matthijs was at work.  First, I looked up directions to the Anne Frank house and wrote them down.  Fortunately, this worked out well, as I am happy to say that I found it free of any issues!  Walking through the house was extremely interesting, especially since I always learned so much about her when I was in school!  After that, I continued walking around the center of Amsterdam and exploring all of the amazing canals and streets!  All kinds of people were out on their bikes and parked bikes were also everywhere!  Never in my life have I ever seen such an abundance of bicycles!  I had heard that people in Amsterdam rode their bikes, but this exceeded what I had anticipated seeing.  Although I am not even sure how much I walked, I certainly went all over the place and when I told Matthijs all the stuff that I did, he said that I did indeed walk pretty far!

Later, we went on a scooter ride to dinner, which was quite an experience.  Typically, I would never go on a scooter or anything like it, (yes, it was one of my fears) but after walking all day long, I reluctantly agreed to do it.  Despite the fact that I was definitely freaked out, it was not really that bad, but I would certainly not want to drive one of those!  Dinner was delicious.  We ate tapas at a Spanish restaurant and then afterwards we had Dutch apple pie (which was absolutely amazing) and mint tea for dessert at another place!

Saturday we went on a walk to Vondelpark, which was really quite fantastic!  Even better than a walk in the park was the fact that the weather was so incredibly perfect!  Sunshine filled the sky and the temperature was quite mild.  However, about an hour after we left it started to sun shower for a bit, which was kind of strange.  At least it was just a sprinkle, so we continued on our walk and I got to see some other areas around the city center of Amsterdam.  Along the way we had some café con leche and then Matthijs asked me if I had ever tried herring, which I had not, so we made a stop to get some.  Although it was a random raw fish that I had never tried, I did actually like it!

Sunday I did some more exploring around the city while Matthijs worked on some of his moving stuff.  I must say that Amsterdam is really nice and easy to get around.  Although I have been around lots of Dutch here in Belgium, I unfortunately do not yet speak it.  Therefore, it is definitely an added bonus that most of the people there also speak English!  Even though I got a bit lost, it was really no problem as I easily found my way around.  After making some random stops for lunch, some pie and other delicious treats, I continued walking around to check out other areas.  When I was unsure of where I was, I asked for directions.  When I ended up back at Matthijs’ apartment with three maps from random people who had given them to me, he totally laughed.  After cooking me a tasty dinner, he took me for a scooter ride through the infamous red light district, which was pretty crazy to see in person, even though it was a Sunday night!  We stopped for some delicious waffles with ice cream and then rode back to his place in the pouring, cold rain!  A month ago I complained about the lack of rain, but I sure got some on this trip!

Monday morning I left to go back to Brussels.  Since I had a little bit of time before I had to go to the bus, I stopped to get some breakfast and coffee.  At the places that I stopped, I met random people who totally wanted to talk to me and know where I was going and where I was from since I had my luggage with me.  It was kind of funny!  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a ton of time to chat with these people, so it was kind of bizarre that they wanted to chat so much!

When I left to get the tram to Centraal Station, I went to exactly where Matthijs had said to go to get the 17, and then a tram pulled up and I noticed that it said “2128” and it made me smile to see my brother Bryan’s birthday.  Then I got on the tram, and after about twenty-five minutes, I started to feel like I was going the wrong way!  This was not cool because I had just thirty minutes to get to the bus and the 17 was supposed to take me twenty minutes and the other tram was going to take about thirty minutes!  When I asked what the deal was, I was informed that I was on the wrong tram if I wanted to go to Centraal Station, but when I showed them where I was heading, they told me to get off at the stop and to take the bus across the street.  I seriously lucked out because it actually took me less time to get to there than if I had followed the original directions.  The bus place was at the next stop, so I arrived there with plenty of time to spare!  What a fabulous ending to my trip to get a sign from Bryan and end up on the wrong tram, yet make it there in perfect timing!  Amsterdam was awesome and I hope to be able to go back there again one day in the near future!