Our train ride to Amsterdam took about 16 hours and it was a pain! I printed out the wrong part of the ticket so I didn't have my seat number. I was so scared I would get kicked off the train. I was in compartment with Kathleen, and Katelin was in another compartment with this Czech guy. Kathleen and I came over to Katelin's compartment to hang out because we still had like 3-4 hours before we should be goin to sleep. The guy, whose name is Vladimir, was a musician, in his 30s, and very good looking. He knew ten different languages because he has been traveling all over the world. He knows Czech, Eng, RUssian, Spanish, Italian, Serbian, Japanese, Arabic, and some other ones! He doesn't really have a permanent home since he hasnt stayed in one place for too long. He told us really crazy stories about how he hitchhiked across Germany and Japan. He said that it's not as dangerous to do it in Europe and that Germany was the easiest place to hitchhike in (good to know). He told us about the time him and his girlfriend tried hitchhiking in Italy and some drunk man picked them up. For some reason as they were sitting in the car, the man reached for a gun and Vladimir and his gf just opened the doors and rolled out of the car. Vladimir sounded like he knew a lot about life and he gave some good advice.
After a few hours of talking kathleen and I went back to our own compartment and tried to fall asleep. It was just us two at first, but then around midnight our train stopped in Berlin and a bunch of people came into our compartment. It's really hard to sleep when you're sitting squished in between strangers. So I did not get much sleep that night.
The first day in Amsterdam we went to the zoo and aquarium. The zoo was not that impressive. Definitely no where close to the Bronx zoo. there were just a bunch of animals in very tiny, not so animal-friendly environments. The fish in the aquarium were beautiful with very cool patterns. Why do they need such bright colors and such beautiful geometric patterns? I was very inspired by their designs and want to do a series of paintings on fish patterns...haha we'll see how that works out. After, we just walked around a bit, stopped by a coffee shop - Bluebird, and then by 7 we came back to the hostel. All of us fell asleep by accident until the morning.
The next day Olga came and I was very excited! Before she came though, my roommates and I went to the Rembrandt house. It did not have any of his paintings, just his etchings. They were soooo amazing! He did not try to idealize people, but drew them the way they actually were. He was not afraid to emphasize people's not so pretty features. Many of his etchings were tiny...like 1 or 2 sq inches. I took my time looking through all of them and making some sketches. My favorite was the one of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Both of them are not so hot, especially Eve who has really frizzy hair and a saggy tummy. I also got a better idea of how an etching is made.
When Olga finally came, we walked around the redlight district. We ran into Zach...how random! He was there for spring break, and he's not even studying abroad. It took us a while to find the windows where prostitutes just line up and stand there. We walked into these narrow, creepy alleyways by accident, and that's where all of them were. Those streets were all filled with men, and it was pretty frightening walking there at night. That area is supposed to be the safest in Amsterdam though because there are so many cops there.
Olga and I also looked for a bridge that was supposed to have a really nice view of the canals at night. We walked through a bunch of canals, really pretty castles, and brightly lit up streets to get there. We had a little photoshoot on the way since Olga had her prof slr cannon. We walked around so much that day and were extremely tired by the end. We had some shoarma for dinner and then went to check out the nightlife in Leidseplein Sq. That whole area was filled with bars and clubs. Olga and I just decided to go from one place to the next to the next, since none of them had cover charges. The first place that we went to had "macarena" blasting as we walked in. That was definitely a plus! We decided to leave our coats at the coatcheck there so we wouldn't have to worry about carrying them around the whole night. Then we went to another club that had a bunch of people standing outside waiting to get in. They all looked pretty young, probably younger than us. Once you enter the club, the bouncer tells you to lean your head back and pours a shot in your mouth before you enter. We danced around there for a bit. Olga spotted someone she thought was cute...an emo boy who looked like a girl and was probably like 17 yrs old. typical.
We just hopped around from place to place and spoke Russian most of the night. Every single place we went to charges at least 50 cents to use the bathroom. So annoying! there aren't free bathrooms anywhere in Amsterdam! When we got back to the hostel we couldn't get our door to open. We kept on ringing the doorbell even though it was like 3 in the morning. But no one would open the door for us. Then Olga just pushed the door and it opened right away. So it was open the whole time, and we felt so stupid.
The next day was very eventful. Olga and I split up from Kathleen and Katelin because we wanted to walk to the Van Gogh museum, but they wanted to take the tram. On our way there we found some really cute shops and a flower market. There was also a Christmas store with pretty decorations and different ornaments. The Van Gogh museum was amazing! It had three levels. THe very top was dedicated to his art friends, artist of his time, and artists that inspired him, such as post-impressionists. Then the other floor were all his paintings and some drawings. His career only spanned 10 years and he produced about 800 paintings. The bottom level was dedicated to his fascination with twilight. It had a bunch of paintings of dusk and dawn, and of course included his most famous piece, Starry Night.
After the museum, Olga and I were really overwhelmed by all the art, so before going to the masterpieces museum, we decided to take the tram and bus to see a windmill. The windmill was in the middle of the city...it was bizarre. We took some pics by it and left after about ten minutes. Then we took the bus and tram back to the museum area and went to the Rijksmuseum. We saw some Rembrandts and Vermeers, but other than that I wasn't really impressed with it. I learned that Vermeer only produced like 30 paintings in his lifetime that we know of.
After, we walked around for like 2 hrs trying to find a cheap dinner. All the places were extremely expensive. We found this one block filled with cute restaurants. Amsterdam has any type of food you can ever want...Indonesian, indian, mexican, chinese, thai, japanese...but we couldn't find any Dutch food! Everything was over 20 euro. So we ended up settling for some cheap stirfry from a chain Chinese take-out, and it was GROSS!!
We finally came back to the hostel for a little bit and then went out in Rembrandt Plein. We wanted to have a chill night, we just went to a coffee shop for a beer. There was a Russian couple sitting in front of us, and we were trying to guess their names. We came to the conclusion that it's probably Svetlana and Veetya. The bouncer in the coffee shop randomly came up to us and told us that he met us last night at another club. He also said that we were speaking Spanish to him (but i think it was Italian). I dont remember any of that eeeeek. The coffee shop was playing really hilarious music like Baby One More Time and the Gypsy Kings. After the coffeeshop we got some ice cream and walked home.
The next morning, we went to a few outside markets and then to the Sex Museum. There were a bunch of old men there walking around which was kind of creepy. Olga left around 2 pm and I went back to the hostel to meet up with Kathleen and Katelin.
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