Amstie!

Amstie is my pet name for the city of Amsterdam! I paid it a little visit with Katilyn over the last weekend of April. This series of pictures seems like a good lead in, just to reinforce where we are:

That little thing there is Kaitlyn

Sadly that is not me climbing the S

There I am!

Captain Morgan pose!

Casually reclining

The first thing that I wish someone had told me about Amsterdam is that there are more bikes than people. Literally, more. It was there that I developed a deep and profound hatred for bicicles and their riders because I can't count the number of times that I was almost killed by those ugly little machines. They're like an army:

Apparently we picked the wrong (or right) weekend to go because, as we found out after we booked the trip, Saturday April 30th is a huge Dutch celebration called "Queen's Day". It's the birthday of their favorite Queen who died a couple decades ago. They like her so much that, no matter when the actual Queen's birthday is, they say it's on April 30th and throw a nation-wide party then. The Queen was in The Hague but the party went on in Amsterdam without her. The only downside was that with so many people wanting to be in the same place at the same time, there was a shortage of hotel rooms and hostal beds. We were looking at hostal beds at upwards of 100EUR/night until SuperMom (that is @Toni Greenlee) stepped in and lent us her holiday inn points to get a free room on friday night. We booked the mystery hotel room for Saturday night. The deal is that they don't tell you the name when you book it, but it's much cheaper than the rest. It turns out that we had booked the Hilton Amsterdam. If you think we're lucky now, wait til we get to the hotel. When we checked in at the Hilton, they told us that they were all full so the only room they had left for us was the Queen suite on the executive floor. That is luck. And here is where we stayed:

Me in Kaitlyn's bed at the Crowne Plaza

Before we got at the beds

Bathroom, the only picture I have of the Hilton

So after we were done revelling in our awesome beds, we hit the streets. I have a bunch of pictures to show you what these streets actually looked like:

This is the entrance to a surprise mall

Some kind of government building

typical street

Some of the streets in Amsterdam are actually canals. They're beautiful, unlike any other city I've been in. We were sure to get a bunch of pictures.

Me + Canal

One of the main canals

Kaitlyn + Canal

Kaitlyn: "put your arm around me so we look nice"

Me: "ew, I have to touch you? What if I don't want to touch you?"

I finally touched her

On friday we did the flower market and the Van Gogh museum. Technically we were not supposed to take pictures inside the museum, but Kaitlyn is a sneaky little thing and got us some pics anyway.

They're famous for Tulips, but these are actually Daffodils

This is what the museum looks like inside. It's a very modern building. The downstairs with the blue carpet is a bar/cocktail area and the 3 upper floors are museum.

Last legal picure inside

sneaky self portrait

Cherry blossoms

something about dots that is apparently very famous....



On Saturday we went out to experience the party. It looked very impressive but in all honesty, it wasn't crazy. Europeans keep telling me that they're smarter than we are because they know how to properly use alcohol because there aren't strong taboos about it in the European culture. I now believe them. We only saw two really drunk kids and no ambulances so I'd say that, as crowded as it looks, it was a success. See for yourself!

Our first stop was authentic Dutch Heineken!

Kaitlyn got one too!

The main plaza

That's the current Queen. Her face is draped on the side of a museum.

Party on the canal!

Bigger party, still on the canal!!

Centraal Station

Another cool thing they do on Queen's day is that they host a city-wide garage sale. Anyone can set up a table outside their building and sell stuff. It was really cool. Here, check it out!

On a much heavier note, we went to the Anne Frank house Saturday night. It was tough, buy definitely necessary. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside and we respect Annie more than Vinnie so we actually complied this time. We still got what we could though:

The lobby and the ticket booth

The door. Not the one that we go through, but the one that she used.

Right before we got to Anne's house, we played a little hide and seek in an alley. I realize how that sounds, but it was a beautiful alley:

Where am I?

Where is Kaitlyn?

There she is!!!!!

And now for some randomness:

They set up a carnival during the day!

Best sign I saw in the city

These funny-looking things are urinals. This is the Dutch idea of a public bathroom. Obviously, there are no laws about indecent exposure. Ew.



So with that lovely impression, I leave you. Several other cities are on the way, but hopefully I will give more attention to studying for my finals than to updating the blog. No promises though....did you ever notice how having alot of work makes you actively seek out other things to do? This qualifies as "other things".

Hasta pronto!!