Rebecca Does The Netherlands

Our trip began with another train ride to Milan train station and a bus ride to the Milan airport. A few hours later we are on our KLM flight to Amsterdam. This trip was small, just three girls, which was a nice change of pace. We didn't leave Italy until about 9:30, arriving into Amsterdam at 11:15. Our directions to the hostel were pretty vague again, but we found it pretty quickly once we were in the area. We stayed in the Trianon Hotel- don't be confused by the word hotel, it was nothing close to a hotel and was the worst hostel we have stayed in so far. Tricia found out that Girltalk, an American DJ, was playing in Amsterdam Thursday night and wanted to try to make his show that night. Once we checked in we asked the guy at the front desk to circle on the map where the club was and where we were. He knew where the club was, but he didn't know where we were- how does that even work? Anyways, we ran to find our room but had to go up about 6 flights of narrow stairs to our 8 "mixed" bed room. We were laughing hysterically at the stairs when we got into our room at 12:15 and woke up a guy that was sleeping there. Great- our first trip to share a room with someone. We really just wanted to lock up our stuff and leave for the concert, but there were no lockers to lock up our things. Great- our first hostel to share a room with strangers and no lockers for our stuff. We kept everything of value on us, locked our bags with our luggage locks and left the hostel. After about 15 minutes of walking up and down streets we finally found Paradiso- the club where Girltalk was playing. There was a long line outside of the club which was a good sign that he hadn't gone on yet. We waited in line for around 45 minutes and met some American guys from St. Louis area. We finally got in the club and was surprised to see it wasn't packed. Whe Girltalk came out at 2:45 though, it was crowded. It was really cool to see him live and see him in Amsterdam. We were pretty tired from class and traveling so we left the concert at 4- but I know he didn't stop playing until like 5 or 6. When we got back to our hostel, we walked back up to our room. Not only was it extremely hot and stinky, but it was full of 4 more sleeping guys. Awkward. We woke a few of them up getting our stuff on our bed. The first night was spent sleeping in our nasty clothes, on top of our sheets with our luggage attached to atleast one limb. To state the obvious, we didn't get much sleep the first night in Amsterdam.

Friday morning the guys started getting up around 8am and started waking us up around that time too. We met them and found out they were from Denmark and were just in the city for the weekend. We slept after they left until about 10 or 10:30 and then started to get ready. I woke up with a sore throat though and Lauren woke up with a massive headache. Both outcomes of our lack of sleep. The bathroom was actually in our room, which was nice. But, since we were in the room with boys, it was pretty dirty. We all showered as fast as possible and got out of the room at 11:45. Near Paradiso we noticed a bagel place so we went there for our late breakfast. We walked around a bit after that and signed up for a 5:00 boat cruise. In the mean time we decided to walk to the Verzetsmuseum aka the Dutch Resistance Museum. It was amazing to learn about what the Dutch did in the Resistance movement during World War II. The museum was really nice and had a lot of cool things. Unfortuantely in the museum I started to get a fever. I'm still not exactly sure what brought it on, but I think my body was just exhausted from all the traveling, especially the concert night before. Once we walked back to the hostel to get warmer clothes for the boat ride, I was feeling better but I took some medicine to make sure. We took the boat ride with a non-profit group that is restoring old boats and was donation based. We were hoping the man guiding the boat would tell us more about the town, but he really just rode us through town and the red-light district. There were students our age on the boat from New Jersey and were studying in Barcelona. Once we were off the boat, the three of us were all starving. We read about a Pancake bakery near Anne Frank's House so we headed straight there. The pancakes were delicious and once I warmed up and ate dinner I started to feel much better. From dinner we walked to the Anne Frank House. Besides the concert, the Annex was my favorite part of the trip. When I read her diary and learned about her family in school I never thought that I would actually see it. On the walls in each room were quotes from her diary and they were so powerful. When I was walking through the rooms and seeing where they hid, it was hard to imagine their lives. Anne was an amazing young girl and her simple words lead us to another level of understanding. If you get the chance, please go to Anne Frank's House- you won't regret it. After we each tried to digest everything we had seen, we started our walk back to the hostel. We were all exhausted and got into bed when we got back. The guys weren't there but they woke us up coming in at 4:30 that morning.

Saturday I woke up feeling much better, which was good because we had planned a busy day. The Denmark guys were still snoring when we got up and left at 9. I had read about Amsterdam's famous open-air market, Albert Cuyp and wanted to go. We got there around 9:45 and got some fresh orange juice and a waffle with powdered sugar- so good. At 11 we went to Mike's Bike Tour. They have two tours daily, a country side tour and a city tour. After my biking accident in August, I knew I could not handle the city tour. Everyone in Amsterdam rides their bike everywhere. It was hard enough walking around with all the bikes, much less riding with all of them. I tried to remember everything that I saw people do on their bikes. This is what I remember: talk on their cell phone, text, eat, smoke, hold flowers and the worst: hold a baby. This guy had a baby carrier on his body with at most a 6 month-old on his chest. One hand was on the handle and the other hand was on the baby. I couldn't belive it. Anyways, we collectively decided to take the country tour that would take us outside the city to see a cheese farm, clog factory and a windmill. We were all happy with the 4 hour bike ride to see the country side. Plus the guide was great at telling us the history of the city and of specific things that we passed. The cheese at the cheese farm was really good too. And I survived on the bike, no falls or crashes! After we finished the bike tour we were starving. We found a place near by and had some burgers. Once we were re-energized we walked to the Van Gogh museum. This season is the colours of night exhibition, including Starry Night, which was awesome. Van Gogh had a rough life but produced amazing pieces of art. I enjoyed seeing the actual pieces that I studied throughout middle and high school. After we spent a few hours there, we were ready for dessert. We got some shakes at another place near Paradiso and hung out there for a while, pro-longing our journey back to our stinky hostel. When we got up to our room, the guys were about to head out to party and asked if we wanted to join them. After our 10 mile ride we were done for the day and needed to rest up for our travels back to Italy. They made sure to wake us up at 5am again though- and snore really loud too.

Sunday morning, we got up as early as possible and out of that hostel. The ride back to the airport was only 20 minutes or so. Since I jumped on this trip late, my two friends bought their tickets a week or so before me. When I went to buy my ticket I couldn't get on their returning flight so they flew out at 9:40 and I hung out in the airport till 2:40. The Schiphol Airport is really nice in Amsterdam so I did a little shopping and then just hung out at my gate for awhile. The flight to Milan was smooth and once I got there I hopped on a bus to the train station. Tricia got to Milan that morning and met up with our friend Ginny who was with her sister in Milan for the day. Once I got to the train station, I caught the metro downtown to meet the 3 of them for dinner. I was pretty tired but dinner was delicious. Ginny, Tricia and I caught the 9:05 train back to Verona and got there at 10:45. Two people from our group were just getting back into town from Prague so we all rode the bus back to our hotel in Verona.

It was a fun, interesting and exhausting trip to Amsterdam but I had a great time. The town is beautiful and has a different feel than the other cities we have been to. And even though the hostel experience was pretty bad, it created more memories and funny stories.

More on my life in Italy to come!

With all my love,

R.R.Rector

Gorgeous view

Before the bike tour! Can you sense my nervousness?

At the cheese farm/clog factory!

I survived the bike tour!!

Me outside Van Gogh Museum!