Christina here. Happy October! Just woke up from quite a nap on the train to Berlin. Our trip has been amazing so far! Sunday we took off from LAX and flew into Oslo, Norway. We flew Norwegian Airlines, on a new Dreamliner plane. It was so beautiful!
My first glimpse of Europe was from an airplane/airport. Our layover was 6 hours, but it wasn't long enough to venture out and see anything. So instead we stayed in the airport that looked like an IKEA cafeteria! I was quite literally dying from laughter; I thought it was hilarious! We had sandwiches that were on fresh baked bread, WAY better than Subway! I got the Tikka Chicken, it did not disappoint.
After my sandwich I napped on a bench for a little bit, then woke up and got a beer and played rummy with Tyler. (He kicked my butt..)
Our next flight was only 2 hours, which was a breeze compared to our previous 10 hour flight. We flew into Amsterdam at 9pm, got off the plane, got our luggage, and hopped on a train to Amsterdam Central Station. We got out of the train station, and it hit me; WE'RE HERE!! The feeling was unreal! Our hostel, The Flying Pig Downtown, was right by the train station, it only took us 5 minutes to find it! We checked into our double bed hostel room, changed, and went out to explore what was near us locally. Since it was Monday night, a lot of things had closed, but it was still so nice to walk after all the sitting we had done. We ended up heading back to the hostel, getting some drinks and hanging out for a bit until we went to bed.
Tuesday was a packed day for us! It was our only day in Amsterdam since we left this morning at 8:30am to catch our train. We woke up early, ate the continental breakfast that was provided by our hostel, and headed out for a day full of walking, and a night full of bussing.
We started off walking to Anne Frank's House and taking the tour of it. It was surreal seeing what I had read about so many years ago in middle school. At first we thought the annex was actually part of the shop, until they told us they weren't able to go in this part of the shop and they showed us the annex. So many people's lives taken for such an ungodly reason.
They had free wifi so of course we snapchatted...
It was crazy to see a piece of that history in real life. After, we headed to the Van Gogh Museum. It was gorgeous, however we were disappointed to find out that Starry Night was not featured there, but in New York. (Looks like we will have to make a trip to New York soon! ;)
When we got out of the Van Gogh Museum, it was already 2pm. No wonder why I was starving! We were debating where to go, when this lady stopped and asked if we needed some help. She pointed us to this amazing sandwich shop just down the street. It was an Italian meat and cheese shop, with fresh baked bread, and a variety of antipasto. Simply, freaking, amazing. My only two regrets are: one, I didn't get a sandwich to go, and two, I didn't take a picture of our sandwiches.
We both had a Dutch Farm Cheese sandwich, on warm freshly baked chibatta bread, topped with pesto, red peppers, and arugula, and accompanied by a glass of wine of course. I'm drooling just thinking about it. It was like Italian Parmesan cheese but soooo much better! (Well at the least better than the kind of parm we find in the grocery store back home.) We were pretty full at this point, so we walked to Vondel Park to walk it off, and do some more site seeing. It was gorgeous, and kind of reminded me of Central Park. Bikers EVERYWHERE! People hanging out, relaxing, and enjoying life, so we did too. We hung out and laid down for a bit, and I got in a selfie too! ;)
Tyler sucks at selfies...
When we we're done at the park, we walked over to the Albert Cuyp Market. I didn't know what to expect, but when we reached it, it was a huge outdoor market, kind of like the swap meet. We walked until we found the stoopwafle guy. A stoopwafle is two freshly made thin waffles, kind of like waffle cones, but flat, and glued together by warm caramel! Amazinggg!!
(Loving the guy behind me...)
After the market we walked back to the train station to catch a bus to this old wind mill brewery. We had some beers, played some cards (I slayed Tyler), and enjoyed the afternoon in Amsterdam!
We then headed back to our hostel to get ready for dinner. We went to Restaurant Blauw for an Indonesian food dinner. We ordered a rijstafal, as suggested by an old friend, and grilled lamb. One, so much food! Two, so good! We didn't know we had to make reservations, so we had to wait for 2 hours and eat at 9:30pm, but we wanted to experience it, so we were okay with waiting it out. We went and got an appetizer and beers in the meantime.
Afterwards we took a tram back downtown and went to the Red Light District. It was what I had pictured, but at the same time it wasn't. I didn't take pictures of any of the women for obvious reasons, but it was definitely interesting to see women prostituting themselves in a way that was like a vending machine. Pick your flavor and they'll come down for you. It was hilarious watching guys reactions to the women tapping on the window for them.
Since we were heading out early today, we went back to the hostel last night for a nightcap, and then headed to bed. I can't believe we did all of this in one day! Oh and for breakfast I enjoyed an amazing ham and cheese croissant. Life really can't get much better right now. SO MUCH BREAD AND CHEESE. So excited to see what Berlin is like! But for now...
Peace & Love,
Christina
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