Over halfway done!

Yet another week has passed and we now just have about a week and a half left before the end of the course! It's kinda scary how fast the time has passed and I feel like I need to scramble a bit to try and get everything done that I want to...

Thursday was a bit of a better day than Wednesday, thank goodness, though I was still homesick. We just had our usual lecture and then went straight to our rooms and packed for Amsterdam! Our plane was leaving at around 8:30 and we had to get there a couple hours early, plus it would take an hour to get there on the Tube, so basically we left around 5 lol. Katalyn and Jessalyn had problems going through security cause they had so many liquids and their bags were quite large, so there was a bit of a wait there and they ended up having to go back and check them - glad it wasn't me! The flight over was SO fast though...I dozed a bit but the time just flew by, it was great.

Once we got through all the airport stuff we had to grab a cab to the hotel. We had this really funny, nice driver and he informed us that our hotel was out around farms and he called it "no man's land"! haha. We were a little worried then that we were way out in the country somewhere sleeping in a barn, until we got to the hotel and it was great! It was a four star golf hotel so the grouds were really nice and it was in this nice suburban area with lovely cobblestone walkways, cute gingerbread houses, people walking dogs (and everyone has two dogs in Holland, btw, not one), lovely canals with little bridges and birds chirping, etc. Plus there was a bus stop 5 minutes away where we could catch a bus that got us into the city in 20 minutes! We got a good deal for the quality of the hotel also, and we had a four bed room.

We just crashed the first night b/c it was quite late when we got there. But it was early to rise on Friday for sightseeing and our intro to the city! We hopped on a bus into town and headed over to a restaurant for some food (where a couple of us had obscenely overpriced meals with a side of terrible service). Well, in fact, our first stop was a coffeeshop...for those of you who don't know marijuana (among other things) is legal in Amsterdam so on every corner there are small cafes where you can buy and smoke weed. You can also, of course, buy weed accessories, pre rolled joints, papers, etc.

Now, I don't really see the appeal in smoking up all the time, and even less so in a lovely city with so many other interesting things to see and do, but it's all part of the experience of the city and so I did want to take it in a little. However, when we got to the coffeeshop Jessalyn realized she didn't have an ID on her ( you have to be 18 or over to purchase weed or be in a coffeeshop). So we ended up having to hop back on the bus, go back to the hotel and get her passport. I went with her so she wouldn't be by herself and basically that was a wasted hour going to and from. But no matter....we met up with the other girls again and went to a different coffeeshop anyway.

Yes I smoked a joint, and no it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. There was no one else in the shop and I didn't even really get much of a high from it anyway. I urge you if you go to Amsterdam, unless it's your thing, DO NOT spend your entire trip in coffeeshops because they are way overrated. Besides you can get marijuana practically as easily in North America anyway (not that I'm advocating drug use on any level, to each his own, but I'm not your mother either). There that's my rant...I will move on now...

From there we wandered the city a bit and eventually got on a canal boat cruise. Also for those of you that don't know, Amsterdam is FULL of canals and it's really the best way to see the city and get around, besides walking. We were in a low, glass top boat driven by this old man Captain who, not kidding, looked just like the High Liner fisherman guy. He looked just like you'd expect an old boat captain to look like - gray bushy hair and beard, uniform, and he even had a pipe in his mouth! Anyway it was a nice cruise....we saw alot of houseboats (there is a housing shortage in the city so a lot of people live on houseboats in the canals) and got great views of the houses along the water.

The architecture is wonderful there...all the houses have these ornate tops and they all have long hooked ropes on pulleys hanging off them. According to the boat tour, the stairways and doors are so narrow furniture, etc, has to be hooked on this rope and pulled up and through the windows! The tour lasted about an hour and when we got off we headed across the street to the Sex Museum. That's right...being a particularly liberal city, prostitution is also legal there and so things associated with it are to be seen in plain view in some areas. The museum was pretty funny, and actually interesting at the same time. They actually had a lot of old statues and ancient figurines displayed (you can imagine doing what), ivory penises and things from ancient tribes, little exhibits and lots of photographs. I have to say I liked the museum alot except for many of those photos - people having sex with animals is not something I generally like to see (quite disgusting). My girlfriends will be happy to know that I got my picture taken sitting on the giant penis (that pic is NOT on Facebook!).

After the Sex Museum we decided we'd walk up to the Anne Frank museum and see if we could get in and if we couldn't get in we'd buy tickets for the next day. So it took forever to walk up there (which wasn't bad b/c it was nice to people watch and see the canals and streets) and when we got there the other girls didn't want to wait in line, even though it was moving fairly steadily. I thought we might as well go in b/c the line wasn't bad, plus we'd walked all the way up here in the first place, but of course I was outnumbered four to one so I was overruled. They decided we should walk to the Flower Market, which was another super long trek mostly done aimlessly alternately shoving the map in my face wanting me to navigate and grabbing it from me thinking they knew best where we were going.

Needless to say by the time we got to the Flower Market, which wasn't really worth it either, and then was lead along by the other girls looking for another coffeeshop, I wasn't in the best mood. Not to mention I was starving and thirsty (it was really hot that day). To make a long story short, they found another coffeeshop, did their thing and we finally walked to an Italian restaurant and had dinner, not without a great deal of tension forming within the group. On the bright side I had delicious tortellini for dinner.

We headed back to the hotel and just lounged in the room that evening. The second day, Katalyn and I were up before anyone else and ready to go b/c there was apparently a miscommunication and the other girls thought we were going out later. This, in addition to the fact that Katalyn and I were annoyed about the day before and actually wanted to see sights besides coffeeshops, led us to the decision to leave and meet up with the other three later. This proved to be a very good decision as we got to see everything we wanted to (and didn't have to walk huge distances as a result of shrewdly buying a tram pass).

We started off at Anne Frank Haus museum. The line was quite long (twice as long as the day before... was a good thing the other girls weren't there as they would have heard an "I told you so" from me *wink*) but moved fairly quickly and we got in after about 30 minutes to an hour. There is a main museum area but you can also enter the small apartment where Anne and her family/friends (8 ppl in total) lived in hiding for 3 years. This was the coolest part - it was SUCH a small space and it's hidden behind a moving bookcase so when you walk in you really feel what it must have been like for them. All the windows were blacked out and they still had the movie star photos and clippings on her bedroom wall. It was really cool to see.

From there we got back on the tram and went to the Museumplein, which is where the Rijksmuseum (very famous art museum), etc, are located. There is a huge park area in the middle of all the museums with huge red and white block letters saying " I amsterdam" (I think it's the new tourism slogan, sort of). We headed to the Van Gogh museum, which was also beautiful. They didn't have my favourite painting "Starry Night" but they had many more and they were beautifully laid out. It was crowded though and we were pretty tired so we didn't spend much time there (obviously had time to get to the shop though lol). We had a rest in the park and a drink for a bit and decided to head to Hard Rock Cafe so Katalyn could get a t shirt for her dad and brother.

We decided to go to the Rembrandthaus museum from there but we has a bit of trouble with the tram system and got a bit lost. Apparently there are a few different companies managing the trams in the city so they wouldn't let us on one with the ticket we had, and couldn't find the right one....plus we bought fare for one but then it took us to the wrong place. So to make a long story short, we ended up at Rembrandtsplein instead and decided to scrap trying to find it and head back toward the main square again.We did a bit shopping along the way and just stopped at a small pub to eat dinner.

I gotta say the Dutch are nice people but they are horrible on customer service. Waiters like to ignore you and take forever to bring things. We just headed back to the hotel for an early night b/c we had seen everything we wanted to see and were quite tired also. The other girls were quite a bit later but thankfully there was no more tension between us, so it worked out well. They didn't end up getting to any museums though and pretty much smoked weed all day (then in the evening in the room several times). So I was even more glad we had split up.

All in all it was a good trip. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and I'm glad we got to see outside the city as well. Holland is definitely somewhere I'd like to go back to someday. No other events of interest have occured since then, just bed and homework so just boring things lol. I'm trying to book Paris for this weekend but not done yet.

I'll keep everyone posted as always.More later! :D