What a weekend! We just got back from Brussels around 3PM today, and I have to say I loved every minute of my weekend.
We arrived to Amsterdam around 9:30 on Thursday night and took the train into the city. Our hostel was above an Irish Pub called Durty Nelly's (yes, that is the actual name of it). Hostels are such an interesting experience, but it's worth the money you save. After dropping our things off and settling in, we headed out into Amsterdam mostly just to see the city for a little bit. We walked around and ate waffles covered in chocolate. The city is so, SO beautiful. The streets are small and old; there are canals running through the entire old city (almost like Venice, but with streets too); and the city is very, very bike friendly. During our walk around the city, we may or may not have accidentally strolled into the red light district. After saying we weren't going to go there, we looked down a side street and saw red lights. On the other side of the canal: prostitutes in the window. As we continued we realized we were in the heart of the red light district. Oops! Thankfully the city is small, and we quickly found our way back to a main path.
The next morning we woke up early to make sure we took advantage of our only full day in Amsterdam. We got muffins (they had amazing banana muffins :D), and afterwards we headed to the museums. We got the Van Gogh museum, which was by far one of the best museums I've ever seen! We spent nearly two hours in the museum and finally left to make sure we had some time to do some other stuff.
As you may or may not be aware, Dutch cuisine isn't necessarily the most "world-renowned" cuisine you can find in Europe. Instead, they really recommend you try the Asian foods since most of Indonesia was a Dutch colony. We went out for Thai food (since most of the Indonesian places were pricey), which was delicious. We then meandered over to Anne Frank's house since I've heard it's a must-see if you're ever in Amsterdam for a weekend. It was so interesting and very emotional to see the house she lived in.
We slept in a little bit on Saturday since we were so tired from all the walking and exploring on Friday. Once we got up we went for a short walk, picked up our bags from the hostel, and grabbed some breakfast at a cute little café. I had an olive and feta quiche and English breakfast tea, in case you were concerned. Afterwards we went to the Centraal rail station to get the metro towards Amstel station so we could catch our bus to Brussels!
The ride to Brussels was perfect, and I was able to sleep for most of it. Thankfully, I did get to see some of the Dutch countryside (including a windmill!). The Netherlands is really a beautiful country, and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I loved it. If someone asked me to move there for work, I'd consider it in a heartbeat. The culture and lifestyle were much quicker paced than Spain, and I loved the architecture and size of the city. I have to say, one of my favorite things was the old homes surrounding the canals! They had these beautiful homes with navy blue bricks and white trim (and red shutters on the top window). Absolutely loved it. On a more funny note, I apparently look Dutch. Although just about everyone in the Netherlands speaks English (in fact the signs at the airport had NO Dutch on them), people kept speaking to me in Dutch! I'm proud to appear local, but I'm very obviously a tourist no?
I'm going to put Brussels in a separate post so that it's easier for me to organize my thoughts. Until the next post :)
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