Amsterdam, Netherlands

29/9/2011 Day 1 – The Airport (Suvarnabhumi)
We've arrived 2½ hours early for our flights to find out that they're both delayed an hour – mine from 1:25am to 2:40am, Katie's from 2:30 to 3:30. Lucky for Katie, hers is a non-stop flight. Mine, on the other hand, includes a layover in Dubai, which has now been shortened by 75 minutes. Super. Just consumed an entire chocolate bar in 5 min consoling my stressed out nerves.

30/9/2011 Day 2 – Arrival
Landed in Dubai about 30 min ago. So far I'm unimpressed. While the first flight was fine (nice German/Kazakhstani seat neighbor and only one sporadically crying baby), airport security downstairs spotted scissors in my bag and threw a hissy fit, demanding I take them out. They were manicure scissors (maybe ½ in. blades), and would likely only be dangerous if I were attacking an elf; nevertheless they were confiscated. In the process of repacking my little bag I chipped a nail; lucky for me, despite the scissors being seen, security had missed the metal nail file I had in the same bag. All was not lost ;)
I still have an hour before boarding my next flight, so it looks like everything will still arrive in Amsterdam.

Arrived in Amsterdam more or less on time, and found Katie waiting for me at baggage claim. We grabbed our bags, bought our train tickets into the city, and rode the 15 min to Amsterdam Centraal Station.
Once we arrived, however, the real fun began: locating Samhitha's apt. We had the address, and knew that it was 10 min from the station, but that was as far as our information went. We asked 8 different people, and got 6 or 7 different sets of directions.

After an hour and a half of wandering back and forth over and along the various canals, we finally found her apt, only to find this on the door:

We collapsed down on the steps, exhausted, and when Samhitha returned we put our bags upstairs and headed out in search of dinner. We ate at a little restaurant called Bijons. I had chicken schnitzel with fries, and Katie had mashed potatoes with carrots and sausage. It was our first (of many) delicious meals in Amsterdam.



01/10/2011 Day 3 – Anne Frank and Tim the Tour Guide
Did I mention the weather was GORGEOUS?

We ate a quick breakfast at Samhitha's before going to see the Anna Frank House; joined the line outside at about 9:30, but luckily it was moving pretty well.

We finished the self-guided tour around 11, and headed over to Dam Square where the “Royal Palace,” the National Monument (which bears a striking resemblance to a particular phallic appendage), Madame Toussand's, and various other buildings come together. There were costumed statue people like in SF and NYC, and a few street musicians. It was approaching lunchtime, so we picked an outdoor table at 't Nieuwe Kafe in the square and made our selections. Delicious meal #2 – Salami, mozzarella, and pesto with olives on an Italian roll.



After lunch it was time for the free walking tour! Our guide's name was Tim; Dutch, but spoke excellent fluent English. He took us through the red light district (which, after Bangkok, seemed quite clean and organized), saw the new church and the old church, walked up the “hill” of Amsterdam (a whopping 1.5m above sea level), took us through Chinatown (where we saw the first Buddhist temple in Europe), walked across the widest bridge in the city, got free samples of the best cheese in Holland, walked past (and got a strong whiff of) the “coffeeshops” as well as getting a lesson on hard vs soft drugs, learned about the canals – all man-made and the water is replenished every three days, learned about the most dangerous things in the world (bicycles), and heard about the miracle of Amsterdam (ask me later).





Following the tour, we all tipped our guide, and while talking with him found out he's moving to Thailand in February! So the three of us went out for a beer and he picked our brains for a little over an hour. I offered to pass his CV along to my manager; told him I couldn't promise anything, but you never know. Sigh..small world. Went to the train station to book our train to Vienna for Monday night, then went back to Samhitha's to get ready for our evening.
That night Katie and I signed on for a pub crawl through the red light district, and met some pretty interesting people along the way. I got a Tshirt out of it too, lol.



02/10/2011 Day 4 – Tostis and van Gogh
Slept in a bit Sunday, and had brunch with Samhitha (and Katie) at a little cafe near Dam Square where we had delicious meal #3 – tostis (toasted sandwiches), omelettes (me), and French onion soup (them). Samhitha had to go to work, so Katie and I bought wooden shoes, then caught the tram to the van Gogh museum. After the museum we wandered next door to the park and stretched out on the grass to soak in the beautiful cloudless sky.




We took the tram back to Dam Square, walked back to Samhitha's to freshen up, then had delicious meal #4 – pizza! In our haste we had forgotten to invite Samhitha's roommate, Kevin, to join us for dinner, so we each brought him a quarter of our pizzas. We also went out for Dutch apple pie that night, and while the service was terrible, the pie was good, though nothing that surpassed delicious American apple pie. :) Spent the remainder of the evening repacking our bags to leave the next day.

03/10/2011 Day 5 – Boats, Bikes, Rijks, and Trains
Monday morning we were up bright and early and claimed the last two seats outside Baton, a little cafe on the corner of our street. Enjoyed a breakfast of coffee, croissants, orange juice and ginger cake. While eating, we noticed that the sky was no longer cloudless, so we ran back and put tennis shoes on before starting our day of fun. We decided to start with a one hour canal cruise, which proved to be quite nice and relaxing. From there we once more went to Dam Square, where our first task was to find me a hair straightener. “But Amelia, you already have one, and it's a CHI, too. “ Well apparently my hoity-toity straightener is too good to cooperate with converters because it refused to work with any of my converter plugs. So I had to find one that would work in Europe, and after searching a few stores we finally found one for €20. Crisis averted.
First activity? Boat tour through the canals. Just one hour, but it was a nice way to start the day.




Next on the agenda was to attempt to blend in with the Dutchies by renting a couple bikes for the afternoon. It was fun..once I remembered how to ride a bike. Other than an hour or two while in Texas two years ago, the last time I'd ridden a bike was when I was 15, you know, before I had a car. We started out into the square, and I called out to Katie, “My bike is wobbly!” I soon realized it wasn't the bike. Nevertheless I managed not to fall off or run into anything, so I think I did okay.

We pedaled our way to the Rijks Museum (Dutch History) and were excited to find out they had a temporary display in one room of Rembrandt and Degas..until we saw that it was Rembrandt and Degas self-portraits, lol...not as exciting. After the museum we scarfed down some hot dogs before hopping back on our bikes and riding around through Vondelpark before returning them.



I was happy to be on foot again, bikes just aren't my thing. We walked back to Samhitha's to grab our things and head to the train station. Before we left I (finally) booked my flight for the 14th from Rome to (you'll find out later) for a quick weekend visit with a special someone before Spain.
Our train to Vienna, with a stop-over and train change in Munich, was scheduled to leave at 8:31pm, so we arrived at the station at about 8:05 and got some yummy pasta-to-go at “Julia's” before boarding. Our boarding ticket was a little confusing, so we just got on and looked for our bed numbers. Found them, stowed all our stuff, made our beds, ate our pasta, and had gotten quite settled when the conductor came by, and between poorly stifled fits of laughter, told us we were completely wrong!

Apparently we were on the right train but in the wrong car, and the set of cars we were in was the half of the train that was going to Zurich, not Munich. So we had to pack up all our stuff, refold the sheets and blankets, and find our correct car (which ended up being about ten cars down..we were way off hahaha). It was a sleeper, and they were clean, but I have to say I like Asia's sleeper trains better; they make the bed for you, there's a restaurant car, and the beds are longer. Plus in Asia you get a curtain, or at least in Thailand.

Fun Facts:
-The oldest prostitute in Amsterdam is 82, and she has a TWO WEEK WAITING LIST.
-Regardless of the temperature, as soon as the sun comes out, Amsterdammers put flip-flops on.
-WC is 'water closet' (toilet)
-The number of “coffeeshops” is declining because the gov't isn't issuing any new coffeeshop licenses.
-When riding bikes, the little bell serves as your “horn”..only 'ding-ding' isn't nearly as intimidating or threatening as a car horn.