Last Day in Amsterdam.

Our last day in Amsterdam, we got up early and took off with part of the group in a bus, headed to the outskirts of Amsterdam. It's kind of weird how similar the countryside of the Netherlands is to our own Iowa countryside. Flat, little bit of water, some treets, but otherwise, not much else. Our first stop, Zaanse Schans, was pretty much a windmill farm.

There were old school traditional windmills all in a row, about 10 of them, it was really pretty cool. We didn't have time except to walk down the row of windmills and take some cool pictures, but that was enough for me!

This sign was too cute to pass up, but even cuter, was the next stop on our little field trip. A mini cheese factory. Solidly for tourist viewing only, and not much of an actual factory, but we got to meet Mrs. Cheese (yes, thats what we were to call her).

Mrs. Cheese taught us all about how they make cheese there at the "factory" and the different kinds of cheese that we were about to taste. It was deliciously tasty cheese, nearly everyone in the group ended up buying a wheel or three.

Even we bought some cheese, despite the name Dyanamite Cheese, its not spicy, but an herbed cheese that tickles the tastebuds! And nextdoor to the cheese place, was a klomppen shop. It was a show room with the machines they make klompen with. They still use the machines they used when they originally started making wooden shoes, WAY back in the day. The man that ran the machines had carved himself a pair, drilled in some holes for laces, and painted the Nike swoosh on the side. They're sweet.

Something about bright shiny wooden shoes in lots of different colors just cheers me up....I didn't get any, and I feel like I should have. Apparently they are ridiculously comfortable, go figure.

After the cheese and shoe place, we went on the most boring canal tour ever. It was a full hour of the exact same view. Fogged up dirty windows, looking at the bottom half of sidewalks above. Woohoo. We did get to see this supposedly famous bridge though.

The canal tour led to a Diamond Factory, which was also a bust, they showed us how to cut a diamond, and then made a huge sales pitch for everyone to buy diamonds. Because we all know all college kids are just LOADED with several mil for a diamond ring. Our awesome sevensome left to find a place to eat, only to magically come across a Chinese restaurant doing some sort of ceremony complete with big Chinese dragon and a LOT of fire crackers.

The noise scared me so much, I backed straight up into the street, regardless of any cars coming. Needless to say, I survived, and we managed to find this cute little pizza place nearby. And it just so happened, that they had AMAZING hot chocolate. Sounds silly, but it was AWESOME. All hot chocolate should be that good.

Doesn't it just look extra yummy, all in the glass cup, so quaint!

Tim and I had to jet from lunch pretty quick in order to make it to the Versetzt Museum. It's the Dutch Resistance Museum, a small museum not in the main part of the city. It was by far the best Museum we went to though. And probably the best World War II Museum I have ever been to. I loved it. It went through Netherland's occupation by Germany and through the war. But it was totally unbiased, and had so many personal stories and details, and just day to day activity during that time period. It wasn't all about the guns and military, it was about the people and culture during that era. Highly suggested. We finished up right as the museum was closing, we timed it perfectly. We had some time to kill before meeting back up with our clan for dinner, so we perused the local grocery store, which was quite the experience. It was intense! People shopped like the store was going out of business in the next hour. Agressive. And the cheese aisle? Whoa buddy. GIANT wheels of cheese on the shelf. Who eats that much cheese?!

Next in order to kill time, we found a cheap internet cafe. We caught up on some email, some facebook, and just general knowledge that the world hadn't blown up outside of the Netherlands.

The hilarious part was that next to us was a line of Dutch teenagers, all playing Counterstrike, yelling at eachother in Dutch, but throwing in numerous English profanities. It was very amusing to say the least.

Finally met up with Ryan, Kristan, and the girls, only to have quite the debate on where to have dinner. We ended up going back to St. James Gate, the Irish Pub. Not too much excitement, just a big discussion on what we all do for a "living" and how Ryan and Tim's mothers are pretty much the exact same person, that was pretty humorous. A long wait for the tram in the freezing cold, and several rounds of the ING Dutch Lion Dancing commercial later, we were back for the night! Good bye Amsterdam! It's been grand, but we probably won't come see you again anytime soon.

New Year's Day in Amsterdam!

New Years Day. Tim and I hit up the poorly attended hotel breakfast, I assume most people didn't go to bed until the wee hours of morn. We were at least asleep by 4am, so by we were on the tram by 10 easily. Madame Toussaud's was supposed to be open at 10, and we figured we might as well do the few things that were open on New Year's Day. The city was empty, it was eerie and peaceful all at the same time. We got to the wax museum, no sign of it opening, so we walked the streets thinking maybe 11 was more likely. We passed so many firework remnants, that I am surprised the city hadn't burned down while we slept.

11am came, we checked on the museum, and nothing. More blocks walked, more touristy stores visited, including ones with cows on the ceilings and really big wooden shoes upstairs!

Noon, our last attempt at the wax museum before giving up for the day, and voila! Open. Well, at least opening, it took a good twenty minutes for them to set up the velvet ropes before they let us inside, but we got in. Somehow, we broke ahead of the other first groups let in, and we basically got free reign of the statues. It was sweet, we could take as many pictures with any of the figures, being as silly as possible, without anyone to get in our shots, be ahead of us in line, or feel silly in front of. It was nice. The downside was that it was significantly smaller than the London museum, and we finished the whole place in 45 minutes. A euro a minute, bigtime ouch for my wallet. Still a lot of fun though, and some great pics. Including Tim looking up Marilyn Monroe's skirt, touching J Lo's butt, and me striking my best Beyonce pose. And the following shots of myself being snubbed by Bon Jovi...

and the valiant rescue of Timothy by Spidey himself....

Post museum, we had an entire afternoon ahead of us and a nearly empty city to wander. Sadly, our feet didn't agree with us and we decided to focus our efforts on finding the famous Pancake Bakery. We found the right street almost right away, but it took us a long time before we got to the right portion of what seemed like the longest street in Amsterdam.

But we finally found our pancake haven, and you can read ALL about it here. The Pancake Bakery Adventure
My arches had officially given up the ghost by this point, and my eyelids weren't doing much better, so we went back to the hotel for some necessary napping. Hours later, my foot hadn't done much healing, but we weren't willing to sit in the hotel all night, so we took the tram into Rembrandtsplein, hoping to eat at the Three Sisters. Only once we walked in, we were greeted with a nasty smell, so we crossed the square to St. James Gate, and it was the best decision we had made all day. An Irish pub, english speaking, Irish food, Irish bar, warm and cozy, and still decorated for Christmas.

Loved it. They even gave me a plastic masher to release the lemon wonder into my water! It was cute and quaint. I think we could have sat there all night. And then our food came, and our spirits were boosted even more! Tim's fish and chips looked straight from the coast, and my Irish Lamb stew seemed to come straight from some Irish grandmother's kitchen.

After dinner, we began the great ATM search. We asked at a hotel for the closest one, found it, and then were confusezzled by its non workingness until the nicest Dutchman in Amsterdam saw us and came up to us to explain what it said on the screen, that it wasn't working. He was so ridiculously nice about it, its undescribable, it was adorable. More walking, no finding ATM. At least no working one. Asked at ANOTHER hotel, found it, and AGAIN, broken. The only time you can't find something, is when you need it. Half an hour into our journey, we finally found a working ATM. It probably stole an arm and a leg in bank fees, but there was no way there was going to be more traipsing around Amsterdam that night. New Years eve had finally caught up to us, and we were fast asleep by midnight....

Craziest Pancakes.

So we kept being told to make sure we eat the pancakes in Amsterdam. Famous? Tasty? Something of the sort. Before we left, my mom sent us the menu of the Pancake Bakery. We checked it out, thought it looked delicious and decided to try to find it if we had the time.

It took us awhile to figure out how to get there, and then even longer to actually get there, but finally, we arrived! There was a line out the door, but we had nowhere else to be, it being New Years Day and all. We stood, and waited, anxiously looking at the cozy warm tables filled with people and pancakes on the inside!

Then it was our turn to be seated. it was shared seating, meaning you could potentially have to sit with total strangers at your table (totally normal for Europe) but we lucked out and got our six top all to ourselves, with a perfect view of the flame bursting grill. The restaurant had two cooks and five burners turning out all the pancakes and omelets for the whole place, it was quite the well oiled machine to get all that food cranked out. We didn't even really wait long!

I had ordered the sweet route, the apples, raisins, and marasquin pancake. And this was by no means the sweetest way to go, they had a whole section of pancakes that came with ice cream! On the table, the maple syrup and powdered sugar weren't alone, they even had a carmel sauce for your entree.


Tim went salty with cheese, ham, and mushroom. It's not even possible to explain these pancakes. They were amazing. Nothing I have ever really had before, and I have had a LOT of food. Particularly in the breakfast arena, my favorite array of foods. Its not the typical American fluffy pancake, but more of a crepe in density and thickness, but your toppings are mixed in to the batter during the cooking. They drizzled batter, let it cook a bit, put in some toppings, drizzle more batter, more toppings, more drizzle, and voila! Amazing tastes explode in your mouth!
I'm a total chub-a-lub for talking about food so much. But really, what other reason is there to travel, but to eat? :)

New Years Eve in Amsterdam!

New Years Eve in Amsterdam was, not QUITE as expected, but certainly is a story to be told. I'll edit the day part of it so I can go into the saga that was New Years Eve. Even if you don't read the blog, at least read the craziness that was the leading 2 hours into New Years. INSANE.

We woke up early to go in as a group to the city to Anne Frank's House. Which, I apparently took ZERO pictures at. It's not a huge shocker though, because to be totally honest, I was super disappointed in it. I read the diary when I was only in 6th grade, and became fascinated with the whole story and the war. But seeing the House was a total downer, not in the depressing way, but because it has been so...commercialized? That's not the right term, but the entire thing has been redone and modernized in a way. I doubt any of the walls are actually authentic or anything. It was like seeing any other recreated museum. Sad, really. But seeing the actual diary at the end was pretty intense. That was the only part of the whole thing that made it seem remotely real.

Anyways, after we finished the house, we were split up again, and Tim and I went on a massive hunt for clothes to make me warm. I totally was unprepared for the cold, and knowing I was going to be out until the wee hours of morn made it necessary for warmth. Two pairs of tights (amazing), a pair of hiking socks, and a sweet Amsterdam hat later, I was prepared!
And we headed off for the Rijiks Museum, an art Museum. We passed some cool graffiti and klomppen shops along the way!


Finally we made it to the museum, only to find out that they had just reopened and everyone and their mother wanted to go see the new exhibits. So we stood in line, outside, for over an hour, in the freezing cold and snow. I took at least 100 pictures while we were in line, trying to take my mind off of it, but I will only bore you with two of them. And at least I had a hat! The British man in front of us had bare ears. Poor poor Brit. The first picture is me with my lion love, and the second is one of the entrance gates into the museum, it was really quite gorgeous and massive.


But we finally got in, saw the museum with frozen feet, and it was interesting. Art museums just aren't really our thing. I can't look at a painting for twenty minutes and try to figure out what each brush stroke meant. I frankly don't care. My bad.
After the Rijiks, we went back to the hotel and the "closeby" supermarket, which was really at least a mile away and a gas station has more food than this place did, but we got a small lunch and headed back to the hotel to eat and rest up for the evening ahead!

A rest and a nap later, we figured we should eat before freezing our booties off for the next six hours, so we hit up the hotel buffet downstairs, expensive and not that great, it filled our tummies with warmth.

And then it started....we decided to meet up with Ryan and Kristen at 10ish, and then head down to Dam Square, where apparently it is all the rage to be. We get to the Metro stop and are informed by other kids in our tour group that the trains had stopped at 8. I know I said I wouldn't complain about our tour guide in this, but COME ON, who doesn't tell their tour group that the train stations close at 8! Plus, he never informed us on how to get BACK to the hotel, and we had to read another tour groups poster to figure out there was a free bus at 2am. But anyways, we were pissed. It was 10:30, and cabs were running 100euro ($150) to get to the city. So, we thought the only thing to do was start walking. And thus we did!

It was cold, but the boys had Heinekens, and I was just desperate to get there. We had no idea if we were going in the right direction or not, but just hoped we were. We had walked at least half an hour when finally someone was kind enough to answer our questions if we were headed the right way. They pointed in the direction, and said we would never make it by midnight. We still had 7 kilometers to go. We basically started jogging. Asked another lady about a half mile later, who was on a bicycle, and she basically laughed at us. We were panicking at this point. There were 8 of us jogging/running/PISSED off at our tour guide that he put us in this situation. Totally desperate and nowhere near close at 11:30, we flag down a taxi van just to see how much, he took pity on us since it was so close to midnight, and pretty much the whole city was already there, and gave the rate of 5euros a piece. Totally worth it.

We all hop in the van, still nervous about making it with traffic and all. 11:40ish, we get as far as the taxi can take us, and we basically just start running in the direction we think we should go. We're all screaming Dam Square, trying to get directions, but nobody pays any attention to us. It was like Amazing Race, I swear, just running around, almost in circles. Finally I ask a couple who actually answers me, but also tells me that Dam Square was closed because it was too full. I wanted to cry. I got back to the group, and we decide to get as close as we can anyway. People were packing the streets no matter where we were, fireworks going off mere feet from us (BIG fireworks, totally legal in Amsterdam) being set off by drunks who had no clue what they were doing. We realized we had run totally the wrong way.

By this point we are all sweating and tired and mad and just done. But we keep running until we see the sign that says Dam Square is closed. Then we started jogging. By the time we hit the massive wall of people, we were less than a block from Dam Square. Nothing was going to stop us at this point. We basically just locked up, and pushed forward. We kept pushing until we could really push no more. And then about a minute and a half later, they started the countdown. We had BARELY made it. By the skin of our teeth made it. We wanted to punch Omar in the throat. People are everywhere, fireworks are everywhere, booze is everywhere. Theres music and dancing and its just crazy. I spent my New Years in Amsterdam. I called my mom amidst the chaos and it was one of those conversations where she can't understand a word I say, and I have no idea if she's even on the other end of the line. Fireworks were going off, people were screaming, it was crazy.

After the countdown, we knew we had two hours to kill before the first bus left to our hotel, so along with Ryan and Kristen, we just started walking the streets of Amsterdam. Street sellers had suitcases of champagne to sell, one couple was lighting a candle to raise their mini hot air balloon, more fireworks, more booze and singing and dancing. It was just really fun to experience it with that many people.

After awhile we slowly made our way to the bus stop, going back through Dam Square, and the amount of garbage and firework trash was absolutely insane. This picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice. It was gross the amount of garbage and bottles and who knows what that littered the ground. But we pushed through, Ryan and Kristen needing a snack, we stopped at a French Fry stand and of course, Ryan made good friends with the British guys ahead of us. It seemed to be his gift.

We finally made it to the bus station, and were crazy lucky enough to actually get seats for the trip home. It was packed. But we made it. With one crazy story. No thanks to Omar.

The Wonders of Glorious Oliebollen.

As I mentioned in my last post, (scroll down! read it!) the Oliebollen are amazing Dutch pieces of heaven. Discovered on our first day in Amsterdam, I am ashamed to say that I probably consumed 3 or 4 in the short time that we were there. Sold on the streets from trailer style carts, they are piping hot, fresh, and super cheap. One euro a piece will buy you a ball of rolled dough, slightly bigger than my fist. Its like a doughnut, sweet roll, sugary bread. You can get it with raisins or plain, and then they roll it in powdered sugar before they have it to you. Its heaven in a ball. Try one and say you don't like it, I dare you!

Amsterdam: Day One and Two!

It's about time I get this European show on the road, or web, same diff. I am still feeling the effect's of Omar's surprise (the ridiculous sickness that everyone from the trip contracted within hours of getting home). But luckily, a light dose of the sniffles and a dry nonstop cough is all I have left to deal with.
Many have heard of the atrocious ordeal we have gone through with EF College Break, but I am not going to touch upon how much and why they suck. At least not in going through the trip. I'll save it all for one big moanfest at the end.

Dec 29th/20th. Day One and Two.

We had gotten our flight changed, so we were thankfully able to leave Cedar Rapids in time to actually make our connection in Chicago. That being said, we had way too much time to kill, and UNO only goes for so long...

The plane was even smaller than we imagined. I swear our international flight was being spent in a gum wrapper with wings. Movies were watched, plane food was eaten, but I knew I needed to sleep. Luckily we had the two seats on the side of the plane to ourselves, but I could not get comfortable. It was NINE MILLION degrees. So I only got in about an hour. It was a LONG 9 hours. But the sunrise was beautiful.

Once we landed, we met our "tour guide" Omar, and proceded to wait another three hours at the airport waiting for everyone else to arrive. After quite the hotel diabacle, we finally got our rooms, and Tim's roommate had ditched out, so we at least didnt have to suffer other roommates. Just smaller than twin beds.

Everyone else seemed to decide to sleep for the rest of the day, but with it technically being Day 2 of the trip, we wanted to get out there and see Amsterdam! It took us probably a good 20 minutes to figure out how to buy Metro tickets since all of the guides were in Dutch. (The entire country speaks flawless english, but their transportation, solid Dutch, go figure). But we finally popped out in the middle of Amsterdam and headed towards the first big steeple we saw.

On our way to said steeple though, we take a shortcut down an alley, other people were traveling down it, it was still daylight (as daylight as it gets in Amsterdam) and we figured no harm. Halfway down, I realize that we are heading into the Red Light District due to the 3/4 naked girls behind the glass, not 6 inches from me. What struck me most, is that they would open the door to beckon people in. Moreso, its like 20 degrees. I have on layer upon layers, and these girls barely have on pasties and a thong and they are out in the winter air! Where are their mothers?! Prostitute all you like, but PUT ON A DAMN COAT!

Five minutes in to Amsterdam and we are already among the heathens. Awesome. We made our trek down the street, and finally made it to our first church, which happened to be on my list of sites to see! OudeKirk. The Old Church. It was ridiculous. It was freezing cold, half under construction, and still beautiful. A majority of it was in wood. Wood back from when it was built. I am used to catherals of stone, and it was just amazing. So amazing in fact, that I had to get my picture taken with the High Man himself.

More walking took us past St. Nicholas's Church, never heard of it before we walked in, but it was also gorgeous.

Everything seems to be wooden here. Plus it was warm, a GIANT plus. I had gloves, scarf, hat, hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and coat, but I was still DYING of frigidness. I am pretty sure people barely know what I look like even after nine days because I was so bundled up all the time, AND I had a rudolph nose.


I think we crossed the red light district about nine times that first day, or at least it felt like it, but that might be due to the COPIOUS amounts of weed/hash/pot "coffee shops" that are EVERYWHERE. And yes, I mean EVERYWHERE. They have a museum, which we didn't go to, as well as a Cannabis Conissuer's Club. Yup. They love the Mary Jane there. You smell it, EVERYWHERE.
We came across Dam Square, where they were laboriously preparing for the New Year's Eve Celebration, and right next door was the NieueKirk. One of the top churches on our list. We headed in, and paid WAY too much money to see it. It turns out that there was an art exhibit going on inside at the time, and it pretty much covered up everything cool about it. A canvas painted solid black, NOT ARTISTIC. So that was disappointing. But still, at least we got to see it?

By this point, being up for 30+ hours was getting to us, as was the arctic weather, so we headed back to the hotel for an hour nap before going out for the night with the group. I feel this is a good point to proclaim the truth about bicycles in Amsterdam. They seem to be the ONLY means of transportation for 80% of the population. It's arctic out, and still everyone is riding their bikes everywhere. Crazy Dutch!


After our nap, we joined up with everyone and headed downtown to a bar to have "Welcome Drinks" and get to know everyone. Well, it was a bust, it was loud, we couldn't really talk to eachother, there wasn't really group seating, or enough seating at all. But we connected up with the cool kids of the trip, namely, the people that didn't have to get trashed EVERY night of their lives. Everyone pretty much took off within the first 30 seconds after they got their one free drink, so we took off with our new little European family and went to dinner at an Argentinian restuarant (something Rancho). Over the next few days, Im pretty sure I saw at least 10 of the same restaurant, but it was good. Argentinian goulash, VERY spicy.
After dinner, we decided to walk to the Red Light District, with Tim at the helm of our directions. Of course though, Tim and I had to introduce everyone to our new favorite Dutch treat, the Oliebollen (more to come on the glorious Oliebollen).

But we finally made it to the Red Light District, saw our fair share of debauchery for the evening, decided that popsicle wasn't a sexy look for us, and headed in, concluding our first 48 hours in the European City of Sin.