Hamsterdayum

Mike, me, Heloise, Alex, Chris, and Ryan on the bus

This past weekend was my second in three consecutive weekend trips in June: Amsterdam! Five friends and I took the overnight bus on Thursday night, got to Amsterdam on Friday morning, then had a long 11-hour bus ride home to look forward to on Monday. While I did like the city, it honestly wasn't my favorite, especially after loving Greece the weekend before (although it's probably my fault for scheduling so much traveling in a row... it's hard to not compare them!) Not to mention that it rained nearly the entire time we were there, while in Greece we had perfect beach weather...

One of our favorite activities was also taste-testing
every cheese store we passed on the streets

Anyways, some of the highlights of the trip were as follows. The first day after checking into Bob's Youth Hostel, we walked (in the pouring rain of course) to the Van Gogh Museum, one of the most popular tourist spots. It was literally full with nearly all of his famous paintings, including the sunflowers and his self portraits. The next day we went to a traditional Dutch pancake house, and I had a delicious, ginormous waffle with bananas and bacon. Even funnier was that the NBA player Andrew Bynum rolled up with some friends and sat at the table right behind us. I didn't know who he was at first, but a giant black man dressed in sweats with an American accent is quite rare for Europe, and I correctly assumed he must be an athlete. The best part was that I overheard one of his friends ask what language the menu was in, and his response, "French!".... Classic American jock, seriously. On Sunday, we went to the house where Anne Frank hid for years before being found, which was super interesting, but also sad and eerie.

After being in Germany where you can literally buy beer everywhere, it was super interesting and strange that you can buy and smoke weed everywhere in Amsterdam. It's a totally different approach than what we grew up with in America and by the ratio of guys to girls in our hostel, you can clearly tell how many come to the city just for that. The second big difference is the amount of prostitution in the city, which I found super creepy and didn't want to be around. Some people say it's fun and part of the "Amsterdam experience", but all I could think of was that those women were most definitely not there by choice, or that it was really their best and only option. Seeing some of the women on their iPhones in the windows made that pretty clear, and I really don't understand how anyone can take enjoyment from it all. This all kind of put a damper on my time in the city, and I got pretty annoyed with one of the guys in my group. Regardless, I did love that the city had canals all through it and that I got to travel and join in on their first hostel-experience with my French friends, Alex and Heloise, who really haven't done that much travelling throughout Europe although they've lived here their entire lives.