Amsterdam is a crazy, bustling city. Kristina and Cat got some really good photos on their DSLR's but I still took some snaps of my own.
Kristina and I went to the van Gogh museum and it was really cool.
We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and realised that we didn't even know how to say thank you in Dutch.
We went to El Guapo, a coffee house on Nieuwe Nieuw Straat (I think that's how you spell it) and we ate space cake.
We walked around the red light district and then went to some pubs which I don't remember. When I was sober I was worried about getting robbed... I "para'd out" and was convinced that the guys in the pub were bumping into me as they walked out so they could feel if I had anything in my pockets before giving their "mates" sneaky signals to confirm. I remember thinking one of them said "this guy's good" to the other as in I wasn't doing the phone-wallet-keys tap thing and I wasn't tipping them off as to where my stuff was haha. Wow.
I was pretty zoned out most of the night and Amsterdam streets all look pretty much the same and I stupidly hadn't bought a map. This meant Kristina and I had a mad time navigating back home to Bob's Youth Hostel when we finally decided that the pubs we were at were shit. We went to some bar and had an Amstel which I liked and she didn't and I found a map on the table!
On the Sunday, we went on a free tour of the city and learned stuff about Amsterdam's history. It happened when a couple of blokes were rowing their boat through a storm and they vowed to found a city there if they survived the night. Everything's built on wooden piles dropped into the earth. They kept building more and more canals every time they expanded the city. Pot isn't actually legal... the police just have a tolerance policy. The prossies are self-employed and actually rent out their windows and then work 8 hour shifts and charge €70 for 15 minutes and don't have to pretend they like it unless you pay for it. The red light district started because Amsterdam was such a huge port town in the hey days of the East India Trade Company... the sailors would come, fuck, go to church and confess, that is, pay the priest for his forgiveness, everyone was happy.
After the tour I went off on my own for a bit. I ended up in a British pub and watched the Mersey Derby. There was an Irish couple, the girl was an Everton fan and the guy was Liverpool. I was in the greatest mood. I drank a Jupiler. I cheered when Meireles scored. I went for a walk at half time and when I got into the next British pub it was already 2-1 Everton and 7 minutes into the second half!
The trip home was ridiculous. They changed the train from an ICE to a normal slow Dutch piece of shit. Then it was delayed by half an hour. Then the crazy black Dutch guy got angry at us because the South Americans didn't know which station to get off at... he was yelling into the PA like a proper mad man. Got home finally at like 2a.m. and then skipped class the next day.
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| Boat tour, Saturday... the weather was schlecht. |
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| Gandalf the boat. From memory it had an awesome huge dog on it too. |
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| The only letters of the billboard(?) we could see. Post-coffee house visit and trudging through the red light district and bars. |
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| Laneway, laneway, laneway... |
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| The sun on Sunday! |
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| Amsterdam is 1m below sea level or something so it's super windy! |
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| The architecture in the Jewish quarter is really eclectic because they let design students design it. |
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| Katy, Alebe, Kristina, Me |
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| When you're amongst the buildings (and really tired/hungover/still a bit high), they look like they're moving as the sky changes quickly because of the constant wind. |
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| Bike, bike, bike... |
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| Canal, canal, canal... |
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| Graffiti on Anne Frank's Huis |
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| On the straat on which Anne Frank's Huis is. |
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