Amster Amster I Don't Swear!!

If there are any Agawakians that read my blog out there you will definitely understand the title of this blog post. For normal people out there I went to Amsterdam this weekend! This trip was really cool because we literally had picked out this weekend for Amsterdam so long ago and we actually went through with these plans. Unfortunately we only started planning a short while ago so we had some interesting accommodations. Let me start with my day on Friday. Friday morning I woke up very nervous because I had a presentation in theater class first thing in the morning. Another girl was giving her presentation before me on the same author I was doing, and a boy the Wednesday before just gave the bio of the same author again. I had no knowledge of this so I was freaking out a little that I had to give a presentation to my poor class about the same author they already knew about. I decided to start off the presentation with a joke. "Je vous presente dans un autour vous ne connaissez pas. Il s'appelle Marivaux (I am presenting to you on an author you don't know. His name is Marivaux). My sarcasm didn't translate well and no one laughed at my joke! Great way to start it off right? My presentation flew by and so did class. We had other issues on our mind because Caroline's bus ticket was reserved for the wrong times and the people at the station were being jerks and not letting her get refunded or just switch trains. While that drama was going on she decided to leave class early to go figure stuff out at the train station while I went to a long three hours of phonetics. After class I went to get Chinese food with Rydberg and Beth and then we walked around and they went to the supermarket by me: Carrefour, to pick out some snacks for the bus. Then I went home and packed and headed to the bus station way to early. As I said before our accommodations weren't great so our cheapest option to get there was by a 8 hour night bus. Erin, Caroline (yes she bought a new ticket to come on our bus) and I were on it together so we knew it would be fine. I slept most of the time so it was totally fine for me. Shortly after we arrived in Amsterdam and suddenly it was 6am Saturday morning.

First sight of Amsterdam: garbage. I have never been to a more disgusting city in my life. There was garbage every where, huge piles, and it all smelled so bad. We were all so confused because no one had warned us about that (I'll have more info later in the blog). We also noticed it was freezing. All my friends told me I would be so lucky to go to Amsterdam in May when the weather was beautiful. Unfortunately Spring in Europe this year is more similar to winter so we were freezing the entire trip.

When we got to Amsterdam we had to figure out how to take the train to the tram. We did this but didn't by tickets and had to talk our way out of getting fined to a security guard. Erin had a good line with this one "Did we have to buy our tickets on the internet?" At this point the guards knew we were dumb tourists and let us in. We made our way to the train, then the tram, then found our hotel. We couldn't check in till 2 so we got directions and walked over to the Anne Frank House. It was still very early in the morning so the girls got coffee and we sat and waitied in a little square near the house. We didn't want to head over cause it was so early but when we eventually did we saw the line was enormous anyways. We waited in line for about an hour and then got to go in her house. The museum was really nicely done. It wasn't so much a Holocaust museum rather just a personal story. It is harda to imagine the Holocaust when you hear it was 6,000,000 Jews. Once stories get personal, especially a story this well known and famous, the idea of the Holocaust becomes more personal. We learned that the Diary of Anne Frank has been translated into 60 different languages which means it is second from the Bible in translations. Pretty crazy!After the museum we went to this famous pancake place for breakfast. I had these little baby pancakes. They were pretty good. After that we started heading back to the hotel. We found a vintage

shop along the way (our first of many) browsed a
little bit and then made it back to our hotel. We finally got to our room and probably not even 20 minutes later we were asleep. A few hours later we woke up, walked around a bit, and then walked over to Vondel Park. A pretty park that Aaron recommended we go to. It would have been really nice if not for the lack of sun. We froze for a little while longer and then decided we jsut had to go back to the hotel. We got some food first and then went back, slept some more, and woke up again around 9. At this point we hopped on a tram over to the red light district. This place was literally crazy. It was completely filled with tourists of all ages and girls in bikinis in windows beckoning you to come in. We were significantly creeped out but still really glad we saw it and explored one of those stranger parts of the city. Tired enough we went home and talked for a while then fell back asleep for the night. As you can see that night bus really took a lot out of us.

We woke up Sunday morning much more relaxed! We went down to the hotel lobby (which was oddly a few doors away from the actual hotel) and checked out. We also had some of there provided breakfast. Then we walked down to Dam Square to go on a walking tour. Yup the same company as the walking tour I always go on. This tour was really great becasue we learned so much about the city we really never would've learned before. The first thing we learned was that the reason why the city was so dirty is because the trash people had been on strike for the past 3 WEEKS! That's a lot of trash to accumulate. The first stop on the tour was the Red Light distrcit. We learned a lot more about it this way. During the day the girls are still in the windows! This disctrict has been a while for a very long time. Pimping is illegal in Amsterdam so the girls have to rent out these windows themselves from 70-150 euro a night. Then we learned that for an average sessions its 50 euro for 15 minutes. Pretty high prices haha. Then we came across this church (the oldest in Amsterdam I believe) right at the end of the district. The guide said this church used to sell indulgence cards to the sailors that would come have there fun in the city. Then the sailors wouldn't feel bad about all the skrewing around they were doing because they would still be able to go to heaven. They could buy these cards before or after the wrong doings. I'm sure the church made a hefty profit off of that. Then we learned a little bit about why the houses lean to the sides and forwards. It's from the bad foundation of Amsterdam and how if a house was poorly built it starts to slant over time. Slanting forward was seen as a goot thing but to the side was seen as bad. Then we went to the highest point in Amsterdam. It's only 3m above sea level. Not very high. We got a quick lunch at subway and then went to Amsterdam's widest bridge which is ironically close to it's skinniest house. The tour continued and we went through on museum. On the side of the museum there were these cobble stones in the wall. They had pictures of different professions on them. They were used before surnames were invented and they were posted on peoples houses. You would always know where the baker lived or the dentist, or even the town drunk. Interesting way of labeling their citizens. Some other stories the tour guide told us was about the Miracle of Amsterdam. This was a story in the Catholic faith about a piece of bread that was thrown up but then magically levitated and reformed into its original shape. In the Catholic faith that means the bread is Jesus's body. The Vatican determined this as a miracle and put the bread in a silver box. Then the box was put in some other museum for a while. A criminal ran into the museum and stole the silver box not knowing what was in it. When he saw it was only bread he said that was dumb and through the bread into a canal. Then he was caught and the authorities were so mad they couldn't find the bread they had the entire town looking for the bread. So this bread could, reshape itself, was fire proof, could levitate, but it couldn't swim. Pretty funny stuff! That's the miracle of Amsterdam. He also showed us these things on corners of buildings that would stop men from peeing in them because they were put at an angle where the pee would shoot right back up. After the interesting and exciting tour we asked the tour guide directions to go back to the vintage shopping area he told us about. He directed us there and we finally found it. The stores were really fun and really reasonably priced- very different than Paris vintage. We went to one store and they had all these awesome sweatshirts from Wisconsin, and Minnesota and all these other places but none were pertinent to me which was a bummer. I didn't end up buying anything but we still had a fun time looking around.

After shopping we went to this coffee shop where part of Ocean's 12 was filmed in that we learned about on the tour. We were just sitting minding our own buisness when Erin and Caroline decided to take a picture of the shop. The minute their flash went off a security guard came over and said not to take pictures. We realized fast that this was actually a body guard and sitting about 15 feet away from us was Lady Gaga! I know this sounds crazy and we have no pictures or autographs to prove it but just hear me out. She was wearing fishnets, crazy high shoes, a black leotard, and had long blonde hair wiht a big blonde bow on the top of her head. She also had a tatoo on her left shoulder blade, which Thanks to Allie Bell, we were able to compare it to a picture and we realized it was exactly her. She was also in the Netherlands May 15th for a concert and wasn't heading towards Belgium till the 17th. So we sat and stared at her for a while and an hour later we left the shop. It was so cool and shocking to just run into someone so famous. I am SO upset we have no pictures or anything but please believe I am for sure telling you the truth!

After the shop we wandered around some more and went to the I amstedam sign. It was pretty anti climactic. We sat in the grass for a while and then went back to a kebab stand and grabbed some stuff to eat for dinner at the hotel. I had chicken nuggets and french fries and we just ate in the hotel lobby and played bananagrams. We were all so tired again at this point I slept through most of banangrams. We hopped on the tram at around 7:30 and then the train and made it to the bus station with time to spare. We checked in and then got window seats on the bus which was nice. We were all completely asleep 30 minutes in and we all did a good job on sleeping through most of the ride.

We got into Paris at around 6am and I headed straight to Gare du Nord to get train tickets for me and Brian to go to Normandy on Wednesday. I went to the English counter but started in French and the guy was so nice and patient that I did the whole thing in French, got my tickets and everything. Now it's 11:30 Monday morning. I just woke up from a nap and I have so much to do between now and 6am tomorrow morning when Brian comes!!! I also have to add that this was my last trip outside of the country of France for my time being abroad! Next country I go to will be America!!