So this morning, I think? Possibly yesterday morning, my days are all messed up since I'm writing most of this as it happens. We made the trek to Boston to catch our flight to zee Amsterdam yaa. This was also my first trip flying with WOW air, should be interesting right? Wasn't too bad, although I was definitely spoiled with Iceland Air last year, thankfully, Netflix downloads saved my life. I'm almost through The Crown and what's with Prince Phillip, amirite? Straight off the overnight flight that I didn't sleep a wink on, I headed straight to the bathroom. Delirious from being up quite early, the flight, and not sleeping I walked straight in.... to the men's room. Mortified by the nice man at the urinal kindly telling me "no ma'am, this is the men's room", I woke up real quick and ran out and across the hall to the woman's room. I was the laughing stock until Amsterdam. Anywayyyy, we had a layover in Iceland and this automatically got me craving those hot dogs. And wouldn't you know it... they had hotdogs in the airport!!! So you know I got one of those babies. My body was so confused it wasn't sure if it was dinner time, breakfast time, hotdog time? Should I be sleeping? The answer to all of these is yes in case you were wondering. Side note, if you're going to iceland... please get at least one of these hot dogs for the love of all that is holy. Almost worth the 5 1/2 flight to grab some hot dogs... almost.
Once I got my hot dog fix I was ready to roll for the last few hours of the journey to the land of wooden shoes, red lights, windmills, and bikes!
Finally landing in Amsterdam and looking for our Uber for 15 minutes, we were off to the city! Fun fact- the Uber driver told us it maybe snows 3 days a year in Amsterdam... coming from a place that had maybe 3 feet of snow when I left, doesn't sound horrible.
I must give myself props, the hotel I chose is the most adorable hotel ever, very hipster/mid century/dream house. It's the Hoxton Amsterdam and you should definitely stay here. It's right on the canal in the Nine Streets and it's just perfect location, not in the center of town, but town was literally one, maybe two blocks over, and the staff was awesome and the bed. Ohhhhh my goodness, the bed. Perfection.
These first couple days were all a blur so I'll just post a few pictures : )
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| Money Shot. |
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| Waffles and hazelnut gelato. |
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| Dam Square |
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| Photo booth in the hotel |
After being up for a very very long time I settled into bed after an amazingly hot shower with impeccable water pressure to rinse the travel off. This bed is seriously so amazing.
*Note to self- find out what kind of beds Hoxton uses and buy one immediately.
The next day was an early rise for us, I had booked a tour to go out and explore the windmill village of Zaanse Schans and little trip to see cheese making, wooden shoe making, waffle making at the Marken in Volendam. All the makings really. While poking around, we found the MOST delicious poffertjes, these little pancakes about the size of a half dollar. SO AMAZING. The traditional way of eating them is smothered in butter and powdered sugar (I feel like this should be the traditional way to eat everything in life) so instead of being a fat kid and having more than one serving, I got half traditional and I told her to slather the other half with nutella, one of my favorite food groups. I can't even describe how good these were. I may have to have more before I leave... maybe a couple times. This mini version of a pancake has that signature crispy edges made with golden butter and a pillowy center that will make your head spin. They were gone in about a minute, but worth the choking hazard for sure.
First stop- windmills! After being shown how these specific windmills work to saw large logs of wood, we made our way back to the starting point along the line of windmills stopping at a few little stores with antiques and sweets- the best kind of stores obviously. These shops were full of nesting dolls, china, little toys, traditional candies, and waffles, and everything I could ever want! And there they were... big wooden shoes! One big shoe you could stand in and then a smaller set for your feet to go into, still big though. I obviously had to take a million pictures and then I saw it, a wooden shoe store. Wooden shoes everywhere, it was so much for my eyes to take in! And I couldn't help but see one special clog in a glass case shining like nothing else- the clog, covered in swarovski crystals, was I'm sure enough to make Cinderella jealous. Her dainty little feet would fall out of these things anyway. They probably belonged to her little Dutch friend Gerda, who just so happens to have had a little run in with the snow queen in the quest to find Kai. But that's another story all together, Cindy wouldn't want you to hear it, she thinks her story is way better, obviously.
The next stop was a wooden shoe factory, I can't get enough of these wooden shoes! We were shown how just a simple little block of wood can be turned into a shoe. The process only took a couple of minutes actually, it's crazy how fast it is with just a couple of machines, especially because they were over 80 years old. My dad would have been in heaven as he is into woodworking, he would have wanted to play with the machines all day and take them home- not sure how customs would handle that, or my mother for that matter. While at the factory I had the chance to try on some shoes and it was like a wave of nostalgia instantly came over me. I love Heidi, and the Shirley Temple version has always been my favorite. My favorite part in the movie is the dream sequence she has with all the kids dancing in their wooden shoes. So what did I do? Danced in my little wooden shoes of course. I'd love to have a pair, but I don't think I would have much use for them or a place to show them off, so I got some slippers that look like wooden shoes! I think my roommate will appreciate that at 6am on a Saturday.
Next was cheese and waffles, just a few of my favorite things. We stopped by a cheese factory to see a demonstration of how the specific types of Gouda were made, taste the product, and see some of the original equipment that was used in cheese making. The smell of that cheese will be stuck in my nose for quite some time I imagine, I'm not complaining. After that, we were onto waffles! We all loaded into a small basement of a shop to see a demonstration of how the traditional stroopwafle was made and also taste... it wasn't horrible either. These are very thin round waffles that are somehow cut in half, basted with caramel, and sandwiched back together. We were shows the original equipment used and even caught a glimpse of the original recipe used. I smell some recipe testing in my future.
Getting back into Amsterdam we made our way back to the hotel for a bit of a recharge before getting some dinner. Stopping to a few stores and possibly getting a doughnut... possibly. Yes I got a doughnut, happy now? Pre dinner doughnuts are never a bad idea, especially when on vacation!
Ending the day with a nice big burger, what an American I am. Less than a minute walk on over to The Butcher and grabbed a benedict burger, that is a play on eggs benny, and a chocolate milkshake. All I could picture was that scene in The Little Rascals of the kid screaming "hey baby, you got a burger to go with that shake?" Well I did have a burger with that shake and it was delicious indeed!
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| My favorite kind of bath. |
The day and night got to us I think because next thing I know it was 10am and I didn't know what day it was or where I was... I might have been tired? Since breakfast was kind of out of the question, we headed towards the city center to a pizza/pasta place we spotted the day before. Since I missed breakfast I thought, what's the next best thing at a pasta bar? Carbonara! Carbonara is one of my favorites so when I saw it on the menu I knew I had to have it. After being stuffed with delicious food it was time for a little shopping and some more little fun things around town. We went to the Body Worlds exhibit which really opens your eyes on the human body. Real bodies and organs are used in the displays that teach you all about what you are made of! Then some hanging around the room until the plans for the night- pub crawl. But of course before getting back to the room, I had to get ice cream. This time the poison was Ferrero Rocher with tons of warm Nutella on top- Nutella is everywhere here, I love it!
After a little rest session in the room we were off to the first stop of the pub crawl, had some dinner, and started the night! The plan was to hit 6 places in the 5 or 6 hours we were out. To kick things off, I think they planned on killing me because it was unlimited shots for the first half hour- this nice British man kept coming around and pouring shots so I obviously couldn't be a rude American. Bottoms up. While on the crawl we had the opportunity to meet a lot of different people, in particular, we were attached to an Australian couple who's names I surely remember now after forgetting the first time and never living it down- hi Mitch and Shannon! The adorable British shot pourer man also stayed close throughout the evening- hi Nick! I'm sure they won't ever see this, but I still want it to be known that I remembered their names for the record! The entire night, we had people pretty confused about where we were from. Since I'm not from New York or Los Angeles, I must be from Canada right? Trying to explain Maine to people in other countries never goes well. So I was a Canadian for the night according to our new friends and thanks to watching Anne of Green Gables countless times, my Canadian accent wasn't that bad : )
While on this pub crawl we were guided through the red light district, which I have to admit, didn't think was as legit as I've always heard it described. You always hear about it and all these certain things about it, but I always thought it was a little exaggerated. I was wrong. It's completely just right there for you to see. The streets were lined with dozens of red tinted windows with nearly naked girls trying to get you into their tiny rooms consisting of a sink and a makeshift bed. Just waiting for someone to come and knock on their doors and close the curtains. I saw a man coming out of one trying desperately not to make eye contact with this large group of obnoxious drunk people, I'm sure he was having a lovely time trying to get away from the crowd.
Strange how it was only around 2am, the streets and the square were surprisingly empty for a city like Amsterdam! The night finally came to an end when we were done being Canadians and back to being Americans, we were informed that we were the third and fourth Americans to finish this particular pub crawl! Apparently we just go too hard in the beginning and burn out too fast... typical. But we were the smart ones and paced ourselves and we made it to the end! We got back to the room around 230 maybe, but didn't get to bed until almost 5am... the morning would come fast, my body still doesn't know what's going on with this time difference thing. Nothing was planned for the next morning so the alarm was set for 930 to get a good jump on the day exploring, at least a few hours of sleep were had.
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| Goals. Everyone's got them. |
Fresh off 4 hours of sleep for our last full day in Amsterdam we were ravenous for pancakes. If throwing on my coat from the previous night that smelt of stale cigarettes and Jager wasn't sobering enough, the weather sure was. Cold and rainy was the forecast all day. So we set off in the rain, found some delicious pancakes and chocolate milk, the cure to everything. Got some more shopping done before making our way over to the city center again to catch a hop on/hop off boat around the city. A few stops in we got off to do some more shopping and decided it was time for some lunch. A pizza place just happened to catch the attention of two famished overtired girls. Pizza it was! This was so delicious and cheesy it had me convinced that this is the real reason why Amsterdam is called the city of sin. After eating an entire pizza myself, I rolled myself to the boat stop to catch it to the next stop... one of the main reasons for this trip, the Anne Frank House. I wasn't sure how we were going to do as I didn't book tickets ahead of time and all I have read was how long and crazy the lines were. We got off the boat and the line was bananas but this was really important to me so we stuck it out and the line actually moved at a steady pace and only ended up waiting about an hour. **NOTE: If you are planning on going to the Anne Frank House, tickets are sold online for time slots and go on sale two months prior to your visit date. These usually sell out quite quickly, so be warned.
Once we got into the house there were no pictures allowed so that was a bummer, but I made mental pictures. We worked our way up through the building seeing the offices and the warehouse. When we came to the bookcase I got chills, I will never get over the feeling of knowing that I'm standing somewhere where these people have stood throughout history. Although I got chills knowing this, I also got really sad. It's so unsettling knowing that this is where families were hiding out for all the time and how they had to live life. Behind the bookcase, through the very narrow hallways, and up the very steep stairways were the rooms inhabited by Anne, her family, the the Van Pels, and Mr. Pfeffer. No real furniture was left in the rooms but there were pieces of preserved wall paper, pictures, books, and other pieces we could get close to, but not touch. You read about it in books and watch movies about it, but you never really know how small the spaces are until you are there and each room had photographs of how they were originally set up while Anne was living there. We weren't allowed to go up into the very top where Peter and Anne would hang out when able, but we got to stand at the bottom of the stairs and see the reflection of the well placed mirrors. Working our way down back to the bottom of the house there were exhibits of pictures, short informational movies, interview clips, and actual diary pages available for viewing. Her writing was so nice, puts the handwriting of teenagers today to shame... no heart dotted i's in this journal.
Again, it was sad, but so amazing. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to visit this piece of history. If you are ever in Amsterdam this is a must do!!
Making our way back to the hotel we decided to grab a quick bite to eat and get a couple last minute gifts before leaving the trip home in the morning.
Now I'm laying in this cloud bed writing this and wishing I could take this bedroom back home with it, it's perfect and I just want everythingggg. Let this be another reminder to myself- research where these beds come from!
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| View from the front of the Anne Frank House |
The day has come to leave this beautiful city. Early wake up, grabbed a quick breakfast, and headed out to the airport for the long travel home. By the way, finding an Uber from your hotel is much easier than finding it at a huge airport...
Anywayyyy, once finally on the plane I found my seat which may have been the smallest seat known to man that I had to practically butter myself up to fit into. That was fun, not. Thankfully the flight to Iceland is only a couple hours from Amsterdam. After prying myself from the seat with a huge imaginary shoe horn, we finally made our way through passport control and onto the gate. Almost home!
while at the gate, we weren't directly at the plane so we were bussed from the gate. While on this mini road trip across the airport I noticed a particularly irritating group of 20 somethings... you know the type. In my mind I was just thinking the whole time... please don't sit next to me, please don't sit next to me, please don't sit next to me. Got to my seat, another exit row, but this time with a normal sized seat so it was all good, no butter buns for this girl! While getting all comfy in my seat I heard it... the brood of hooligans from the bus... sitting right next to me, in back of me, and all around me. This five and a half hour flight will be interesting. It started right away with them playing musical chairs and then it really got going. Until you hear the rising voices with that thick Boston accent in a contained airplane full of annoyed people, you don't know the meaning of uncomfortable. During the safety announcements they were getting louder and louder and the people were growing more and more annoyed of course. THANKFULLY a couple hours into the flight, most of them fell asleep so it was finally peaceful enough to throw on some Netflix and enjoy the last few hours of the flight.
We finally landed in Boston, where the temperature was surprisingly very warm, I felt like I was wearing one too many layers. A quick couple hours in a car and I was finally on the steps of my house! It had been such a long day but it felt soooo nice being home again!
Tossing my bags into my room for another day, I raided the fridge and caught up with the roommate who I hadn't seen for what feels like forever- good to be home : )
*Post edit- it's now 330am the next morning and jet lag bites the big one. I'm so glad I got to go on this trip and so glad I get to cross another destination off my bucket list. Where to next?!
Meaghan
Tossing my bags into my room for another day, I raided the fridge and caught up with the roommate who I hadn't seen for what feels like forever- good to be home : )
*Post edit- it's now 330am the next morning and jet lag bites the big one. I'm so glad I got to go on this trip and so glad I get to cross another destination off my bucket list. Where to next?!
Meaghan
