The first thing we did was get lunch. We found a cool little crepe place and ate there for lunch. Afterward we decided to take a tour of the city by bus. It was a tour bus that stopped at different places and you can get on and off at your leisure. The first stop the bus stopped at was the Dassan Diamond Factory. We got a tour of how they cut diamonds and shape them and the entire proccess from rock to ring. It was actually kind of cool, we got to sign a giant diamond, and then we got to try on lots of diamonds, that cost way more than a college student can afford. These diamonds cost thousands of euros, we did the conversion on one of the diamonds and it came out to 30,000 US dollars, it was crazy.
When we left there the bus took us to some more sightseeing places and we saw a few buildings, and you could tell that some were done by the same architect. For example this building we passed looked exactly like the train station, but smaller. Apparently the architect wanted to mimic his original idea from the station to this small building.
Our next stop was the Anne Frank House. We read that it was best to visit in the late afternoon or early morning, but I don't think it would have made much of a difference, the line was still crazy in my opinon. When we got in line we couldn't even see the house. Eventually we made it to the house, after meeting some other college students doing a europe tour, and the wait proved to be worth it. Most houses in Amsterdam are very vertical and this one was no exception, there was many floors and the stairs to get to each one was barely wide enough to put your foot on, and it felt like they went straight up. My favorite part was going through the bookcase to the hideout. It's hard to believe how much extra room there actually was that was able to be hidden, although in retrospect the space was really small for eight people living there. It was just cool to see the actual place where everything happened that you read about. Also we noticed that with all the canals everywhere there aren't many railing you are literly walking on the edge of water.
After that went to see a nearby cathedral and went to go get dinner. We decided to eat at this place called the Pancake Bakery, we heard it was good and had great reviews. Apparently pancakes are a really big thing in Holland. Dinner was amzing they had all different kinds of pancakes and you can create your own. I ended up getting a bacon and apple pancake with mocha-carmel sauce, it was delicious.
After that huge pancake we decided to stroll around and walk off dinner and head over to the infamous Red Light District. We did a little shopping a long the way and eventually made it to the Red Light District, and it definately lives up to the rumers that you've heard. The funny thing is that there is a church right in the middle of all the craziness, andd the sign on the building leading into the area is amusing.
The next day we decided to do a hop-on-hop-off bus, so that we wouldn't have to walk everywhere, we could just get off close to stuff and find our way to a bus stop when we wanted to go somewhere else. The first thing we did was go to the 'I Amsterdam' sign. It was so crowded there, people were climbing on the letters and running around trying to get the best pictures, but we still were able to get some in. After navigating are way away from the crowd we went to the Van Gogh Museum.
The Van Gogh Museum had some amazing art displayed throughout it. Many of them were also originals. After Van Gogh died his brother promised to get his work seen by everyone, but not long after he died as well leaving behind his wife and newborn son. His wife decided that in honor of her husband she would carry out his dream of publishing his brothers work. She began selling much of Van Gogh's painting and eventually his work took off, when she died her son, took over and decided to start a museum in the 60's to make sure the work of his uncle would be seen, and ever since then the Van Gogh family has been in charge of continuing to make his work seen by the world.
Our next stop was the Heineken Brouwery Experience. We got a tour of the famous Brouwery and learned how they produce it and saw some of the original equipment from the begining of the beer's existance. We also got to go on a ride, to expierence the process that the beer goes through, tasted the some of the ingrediants to make beer, and of course got to try some freshly brewed beer.
The rest of the day we went to Dam Square for a little bit, and then went to the Ice-Bar. It was a Bar made of completely ice and its -10c in there, it was freezing. Oh and we ate dinner at a traditional dutch restraunt and had a real dutch meal. It was a lot of food.
The very last day we were in Amsterdam we went on a Canal Cruise around the city and saw a lot of cool bridges, houseboats, ugly boats, and much more. We saw the Nemo Center by Renzo Piano which looks like a ship sinking into the water, we saw skinny bridge, the most narrow bridge, and we saw seven bridges, the only spot on the water where you can see seven bridges all in a row. We also saw the government buildings and the famous dance hall. And of course we saw a windmill, because what would Amsterdam be without windmills.
The only other thing that is worth mentioning is the fact that second class was so fullon the way home, that we had to sit on the floor in the hallway near the bathroom. Thats when I had the brilliant idea to just go sit in first class but we got stopped and were told to go back, about ten miniutes later the same lady who had told us we couldn't sit in first class, said she had taken care of it, and we could sitt in first class. Free ticket updater. All in all it was a great trip and i recomened Amsterdam to any planning a trip to Europe.
