Spring Break: Amsterdam

So after our very long and very cold train ride on the Eurostar from Brussels we arrived, very late, in Amsterdam! Let me start off talking about this stop by saying that although Amsterdam is known for some very promiscuous things, they are not the only things to do in the city. The city is actually BEAUTIFUL and full of a ton of history.
That being said, as soon as we got to the train station we gathered our very tired selves and headed to our hostel via cab. The man charged us a little more than we had expected but we were too tired to fight with him. Now prior to our arrival we were warned by our travel agent that where we were staying was pretty close to the red light district, but I was not prepared at all for what I saw. The area of the city that we had to drive through to get to our hostel literally glows red, and had half naked and almost fully naked women dancing in windows. It was very shocking but at the same time I cant complain because we were warned.
After a little trouble checking in at the Hans Brinker hostel, we were given our keys and headed off to our 4 person room, complete with bunk beds, a bathroom/shower, and lockers (so no one would steal our stuff). So we decided to unpack a little and then Erin's friend decided she better go off to her room to sleep...and the door wouldn't open. We were trying for 10 minutes to open the door to our hostel room with no success. We then (and by we I mean me) had to proceed to call the front desk from my cell phone to ask them to send someone down to room number 9 because we were locked in. The man then says "your locked out?" and I had to repeat "no, we are locked in" and after a long pause he promised to send someone over soon. A man knocks and asks us to open the door, so I then had to explain AGAIN that we were locked in our room. He opened it and then shut himself in with us to show us how to unlock it. He then unlocked it with no problem and left. So that man definitely thought that we were anything but sober, but we were too tired to care.
We woke up early the next morning and after our free complimentary "breakfast", which was actually just bread, and went to the city center for a free walking tour of the city. The tour was about three and a half hours and was the same thing we did in Dublin. Our tour guide was ADORABLE! None of us can actually remember his name but we were all very much in love with him. It was raining all morning, but it seemed to break up a little during the tour and we were able to see our first glimpse of sunlight since we left London. We saw a lot of the city and learned a lot about the culture and history (if you are interested in learning some you can email me, but for now you can just now that the city is incredible). After the tour we went with our tour guide to a pub for some lunch. He told us a few places to go out that night and some areas to stay away from. But for the most part the city is very safe. Actually a fact I did learn is that despite poplar belief, marijuana is illegal in Amsterdam, however not a single person has been arrested since the law came into place 30 years ago. They are starting to get a little tighter with the laws saying that no one who doesn't already have a "coffee shop" can create a new one. But the way the city is getting around that is to create franchises. The city actually has the least drug addicts in the EU, because all of the people who would usually be going into rehab for all their cocaine usage, just smoke pot instead. Sounds like a brilliant idea to me! One of my favorite stops on the walking tour was when we went to this little area that used to be a secret church. The church was actually where the pilgrims went after leaving England, and before coming to America, as a place to escape religious persecution. I felt very cool, since those are my ancestors, and I have never had anything like that before. We also learned about the history of the liberal-ness of the city and saw a lot of beautiful canals and buildings.
After that I did one of the most depressing things I have ever and will ever do , and we went to Anne Franks house. It was the house that she and her family hid in during the Nazi occupation in WWII. Amsterdam actually helped to hide many Jews during the war, and right before the Nazis invaded, they sent all but 7 Jews over to Sweden (I think) so that they wouldn't be taken into camps. I actually started crying in the house (now turned into a museum) as I watched a video of Otto Frank talk about Anne, and how he felt when he came back and years later when he read her diary. He started talking about how sad he was because he never actually knew her, and talked about how he would give anything to see his family again. It was very depressing, but I would honestly tell people to go, just for that museum.
After that we decided that we all needed a little alone time and went back to our hostel to take a little nap and cry and stuff.
The nap was pretty uneventful, but we woke up in time to make it to the Heineken Experience, which was AWESOME. Everyone was so friendly and we learned how drink our beer properly, right before we got on to ride to be brewed like a bottle of beer. The whole place was very cool and i loved it, so I decided my new favorite beer is Heineken :) At the end of the whole experience you are given two beers to enjoy at a bar. When we walked in there was a group of men who came up to us and said that their friend was celebrating his bachelor party an asked if we would sign our name on his shirt and give him a kiss on the cheek. I thought the idea was adorable and that any man who came to Amsterdam for his bachelors party and spends it at the Heineken Bar asking for women for kisses on the cheek is a saint, so I did it, and then they took a picture to make a nice little scrap book of all of his "scores".
Well in all the Heineken Experience was awesome and to commemorate that i got myself a sweatshirt. I'm a sucker for a nice hoodie though.
The next day we woke up to more rain and decided today would be he day for the Van Gogh Museum. It was pretty incredible but we were all very tired and famished so we left after maybe an hour and a half to get some food and try to check in our flight so we found an internet cafe which was also a "coffee shop" we saw this stuff called cheese pot and i thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. But we check in no problem and then went to an Italian place for food where plates of pasta were 5 euros. I was very excited about this and almost order two because I haven't seen food that cheap since I have been in Europe. (I didn't). After a long day of wondering around the streets of Amsterdam, which is BEAUTIFUL but very easy to get lost because its all made up of rings of canals, we found our way to a pub for some drinks and then went to bed since we had to wake up at 5 am the next day to head off to Copenhagen!!
In all Amsterdam is somewhere everyone should visit. The End