Amsterdam, Pizza, and Bagels--it's just like New Amsterdam!

After a week of midterms, I think we all needed to relax for a bit. So, since we’re in Brussels, Amsterdam is the obvious answer. I had to take a test at 1, but right after, I zipped off to the train station and hopped on board. Amsterdam is only three hours away, and since I was traveling alone, I had a really nice time reading and just relaxing. This was in sharp contrast to how the rest of the night was spent.

Travelling as a group of ten is tricky, and there certainly was some drama. Looking for a place to eat, we ran in to some other folks from our program, which was a bit strange; even weirder was Gerilyn running into people she knew on two separate occasions while we were there. Eventually, I got some Chinese food—its been a while since I had that—and then we spent the evening bouncing from bar to coffeeshop, and so on. Coffeeshops, of course, are not actually places you go to for coffee in Amsterdam. I feel like this brings up any number of questions about my time in Amsterdam, and since this is a public forum, I will go with the decided response for the weekend: I didn’t do anything illegal. Oh, we also toured the red light district, which was kind of humbling, because these women are people, and not much older than me. A couple, though, were on their cell phones while waiting for customers, which I can’t imagine bodes well for business.

Since we were only there for Saturday, I thought the day would be chock full of touristy stuff, but the cold weather made it hard to enjoy being outside. We went to the Van Gogh museum, which was pretty awesome and really well put together. After that, Kate and I wandered all across the city, perhaps needlessly, and checked out this famous park. We saw this strange beer table/bicycle contraptions which we need to do next time we’re there.

We checked out the Anne Frank house, though I didn’t go in—long lines and high cost. Kate, Chelsea, and I got ourselves really disoriented, and cold, so we stopped for coffee and bagels—the coffee was absolutely giant, big as my face, which doesn’t happen in Brussels. And bagels aren’t to be found here either! So sightseeing be damned—“bagels & beans” was all I needed.

And that’s pretty much it in terms of my Amsterdam-y adventures. Our train ride back was eventful, since someone we know was searched and detained by cops for possession. Yeah, crazy. And then the cops didn’t even bother to even check our ID—though I did earlier get carded at a coffeeshop, where you only need to be 18!

Then last night was our friend’s 21^st birthday—even though we can drink here anyway, a celebration seemed in order. The night ended with more random encounters, an absinthe bar, an undissolved sugar cube nearly killing me, frites, and the birthday girl having no memory of most of this. A good time was had by all!

Tomorrow is our overnighter to Luxembourg and the European Court of Justice--more to follow!