"Do you know what we've been through?": A weekend in Amsterdam

And what a crazy weekend it was.



I'll start off by talking about the positive things!

1) We visited the Anne Frank House. This was definately my favorite part of the weekend. Just being inside a place that I've learned so much about since elementary school was incredible. We toured everything, from the kitchen to Anne's room. We saw the original pictures she put up on her walls, and there were portions from her diary in all the rooms to describe it a little more. It was a very powerful place to be in. They had information about each room and the people that lived there. This is something that I've read about and heard about practically my entire life, and I actually had the opportunity to see this place for real.

2) We visited the Rijksmuseum. This is the largest museum in the Netherlands (kind of like their national museum, I think). It had sculptures and paintings and models from different time periods, and artwork from people like Vermeer and Rembrandt. I mainly liked it because of the variety it had. They had a couple of old dollhouses on display which were enormous, and a painting they had just re-touched with the steps they took to do it.

3) We visited the Van Gogh museum. This was great because, well, it was the Van Gogh museum. They had other exhibits, but we mainly looked at just Van Gogh's paintings.

4) We took a canal tour around the city. Obviously, this was very relaxing and pretty to see.

5) We visited a diamond factory and tried on diamond rings.

6) We took a bus tour and saw some more of the city, including a windmill.



So, with that said, on to the more "interesting" part of the weekend. I felt like I needed to mention the positive things first, so you know the weekend wasn't a complete disaster. I bet you want to read more now, right? Well, here it goes:



We arrived in Amsterdam around 9 on Friday morning, after a 10 hour ride on a coach bus. Overall, it wasn't that bad. Unlike last time, we were able to find "our" hostel relatively easily. It was very nice (at least the lobby was). It looked more like a hotel actually. Well we couldn't check in until 3, but they had lockers where we could leave our stuff.

Afterwards, we went to Anne Frank's house, the Rijksmuseum, and dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. And then we went back to the hostel....

We got back around 9 PM. At which time we were told that the hostel was already completely booked for the night. Problem. We had reservations, so it clearly wasn't our fault, as we explained to the manager. So he said this wasn't a problem, and that we could just move to one of the other hotels this company owned, which were supposedly nicer and more centrally located. We were upset, but there wasn't anything we could do, so we said okay. We were then transported to the 2nd hostel. That's when the real fun began...

10:00PM- Once we were all safely inside this 2nd hostel, we went to the front desk to check in. We said that we had booked a private room for 6. Well apparently these 2 hostels weren't as closely related as we thought. This one didn't offer any private rooms of 6. What they did offer, we were told, were co-ed rooms. Oh, and that we were going to have to be split up into pairs and sleep in 3 different rooms. 3 different co-ed rooms. 3 different co-ed rooms in the city of Amsterdam. Well, that just wasn't going to work. So, we explained to the man at the front desk that we had paid for a private room and were simply not going to be split up like that. This did not go so well. First of all, there was a huge conference going on in Amsterdam, so transferring to another hotel for under $150 was out of the question (we know this because we had the man at the front desk call about 8 different hotels trying to find us some rooms). Second, there were already at least 4 other people in every other room at this hostel, so there was absolutely no way the 6 of us could stay together. Not to mention the fact that people who worked there didn't seem to understand why anyone wouldn't want to stay in a co-ed room.
11:00PM- a couple of us decided to go ahead and take one of the rooms. Okay, so 2 down, 4 to go.
11:15 PM- we called Thomasina (one of the one's in charge of us in London) to ask her what we should do. She called the first hostel to try and talk to them, and was basically told that we were no longer their problem because they had already passed us off.
11:30 PM- we began to seriously consider the possibility of going to a train station and sleeping there. Also, man at the front desk was beginning to show signs of frustration....
12:ooAM- we decided to take the only option we had left- stay awake all night sitting in the dining area of the hostel. One of us tells our decision to poor man at the front desk, demands that we have our money back, and informs him that we will also be having free breakfast in the morning, seeing as how we will inevitably be the first ones at breakfast. Man at the front objects to none of this, and just looks pleased that we will be leaving him alone.
2:00AM- man who transported us to 2nd hostel comes into our dining area, to see 1 girl sprawled across a table, another girl asleep on the floor with blankets all around her, and the other 2 playing a drowsy game of cards. He looks at us, then tells us that they do in fact have a room for us after all.
2:15AM- turns out room is quite nice. It has a TV and it's own shower/bathroom. very nice.
9:50AM- wake up and hurriedly rush down to breakfast (which ends at 10AM)... ironic, huh.
10:45AM- finally check out of hostel.

yay. but that's not all!...

3:30 PM- after bus tour, we ate lunch in a cafe. 2 in our group, who like to spend a considerable amount of time in museums, decided to go ahead and go to the Van Gogh museum, which we already had tickets for, and which closed at 6. Since it was only 15 minutes away by tram, we decided to wait about 1/2 an hour and then leave for the museum. We thought we could all meet up at 6 when it closed. Good plan right?
4:10PM- the 4 of us got on a tram headed for the museum.
4:30PM- we got off at the stop we assumed was for Van Gogh, since the bus driver had said the words Van Gogh right before it (we couldn't understand the other words, you see, because they were in Dutch)
4:45PM- after walking down a few roads and turning various directions, we discovered that we were no where near the Van Gogh museum.
5:00PM- managed to finally get on the right tram for the museum
5:15PM- arrived at Van Gogh! had 45 minutes to look at 4 floors of art AND make it to the gift shop!

Then, we went on our canal tour, went to McDonalds, and then to the bus station.

9:15PM- we get to the bus station and check in. The man who checks our passports says "thank you" as he hands everyone's passports back... to me he says "gracias"... o well.
10:ooPM- bus leaves for London!
6:15AM- arrive at the border of France and the sea and are told we have 15 minutes to get off the bus, have our passports checked again, and get back on the bus before the ferry leaves.
6:25AM- everyone gets back on bus (I do, after being asked ridiculous questions such as how am I paying for college and what my parent's occupations are...) and waits for it to move.
6:35AM- bus has still not moved. Some are becoming concerned since we now have a -5 minutes to make it to the ferry.
6:36AM- a man who was on our bus comes back with a security guard, collects his stuff, and then leaves. Apparently he couldn't make it past security.
6:40AM- after racing all the way to the ferry entrance, our bus driver decides to inform us that we have indeed missed our bus, and the next one will be arriving at 8AM.
So we sat on the French border, on a Dutch-speaking bus, for an hour and a half.
10:00AM- FINALLY make it back to London.

And that was Amsterdam. pictures to come later.