Three days in Amsterdam during May
Weather: Cloudy/Drizzling - 45°F
Day 1 - Monday
3:00AM – En Route to Dublin Airport to fly to AMS (Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport)
We woke up at 3:00AM and took a taxi to the Dublin Airport. The flight was about an hour and thirty minutes. We arrived at the AMS airport. After we went through customs, we bought each bought a 72 hour Amsterdam City Card for 60€, which gave us free public transportation in the city, free admission to museums, discounts, and some free gifts. We took the train into the city at a cost of 4.30€. We walked to our Flying Pigs hostel. Amsterdam is different from Ireland. Immediately I noticed that there were more people. Everyone in the hostel seemed faded. I guess that is what happens when you legalize weed in the city.
10:00AM – Lunch, Canal Tour, and Rembrandt Museum
We walked to a lunch place near the hostel, where we ordered breakfast. Two of my buddies couldn't wait and went to a coffee shop and smoked a blunt. It was half tobacco and half weed. We walked towards Dam square and took pictures of the place. Because we knew that it would rain the following day and the day after, we opted to do the one hour canal tour this day. It gave us a good tour of the city and was relaxing to say the least. Then we went to the Rembrandt museum via the tram. It took us a while to find because it was actually just one small four story building. On our way to the museum, we found a bakery shop and that is how my buddies became obsessed with bakeries. We ordered some pastries and they were amazing. At the Rembrandt museum, we learned how to do etching, make paint, and how to make prints. They used three different techniques to carve the metal plate, which was then inked to make a reprint of the picture. We headed back to the hostel to get some rest.
5:00PM – Night out in the city with people from the Hostel
When we woke up in the hostel, we found people in our 6 bed shared room. I met Nicole who had just come from a cruise with her mother. She lives in D.C. and had been studying Public Policy. Vincent had been traveling for 20 months and sailed for 3 months. He quit his job as a Captain in Pennsylvania. Tatia was from San Paulo, Brazil. We all went to the Red Light District and grabbed a beer at a bar. Vincent had found a guy on Couch Surfing and we all met up at an Irish pub. The guy went by Icee and was half Israeli and half Dutch. He talked about his time in Cape Town and how he left Israel to make a life in the Netherlands. He was 28 and lives with his cousins who are now married and have a kid, so he was looking for people around his age to hang out with. I mentioned to him that he should probably look for people that actually lived in the Netherlands. But, he countered by saying that locals usually hang out with locals and tourists with tourists. There were prostitutes in the red light district and supposedly the ones with blue lights are transgender. Some of them were pretty especially the ones with the school girl glasses. Anyways it was interesting, I headed back early at around 11:00PM.
Day 2 of 3 in Amsterdam
Day 3 of 3 in Amsterdam