Amsterdam Part One- Holy Nutella!

November 13, 2014

My weekend in Amsterdam was so fully packed with wondrous experiences and adventures that I decided to break this post up by day. I couldn’t simply bear to forsake sharing any of the stories from my trip. From the day we arrived to the day we left, I found myself aspiring to soak in as much life of Amsterdam as I could get. I hoped these memories might persist in reality for just a bit longer. The thought that they might one day escape from my memory is motivation enough to scribe all my thoughts, feelings and experiences from this weekend into some permanent haven. I arrived in Amsterdam Friday evening enthused to begin an evening, and rather an entire, weekend of infinite exploration.

This magnificent and festive street welcome me to Amsterdam. What a magical weekend it would be!

I could live in Amsterdam forever. My second trip back this weekend only furthered my love for this city and the Netherlands. Here, traditions of cultural expression and innovation thrive. In Amsterdam, and rather Holland as a whole, I find a liking for my own heritage and a haven to inspire my dreams.

Christmas lights in Amsterdam! I loved how every street was decorated in different and festive patterned lights.

I arrived into Schipol airport around 4:00 pm and met up with Grace. Together we navigated the train system and found our way to our hostel. The Flying Pig Hostel Uptown was located adjacent to Vondel Park and the Museum district. It captured all the fun and vibrant elements of a hostel, while still being very clean. Eager to see the city, Grace and I said hello to our friends, dropped our bags and headed out to the streets.  I recognized some points of the city from my last trip, which proved quite helpful for navigating at night and after a day of travel. We walked over and around canals soaked in the festive lights dotting street corners and storefronts. It was great to spend time catching up since our last trip, which was only a short four days ago, and enjoy the streets of the city I loved so very much. Our stroll took us into the heart of the city center where people congregated in the central square and surrounding roads. At no other place but the Nutella shop, we stumbled across two of our friends enjoying a delicious Belgian waffle. Some sweet odds! This was particularly exciting for me because we met up with my friend Jane whom I haven’t seen since childhood. We caught up on life for some couple of years and the action packed time abroad. I never imagined reuniting with old friends over a weekend in Amsterdam. It was part of some wanderlust dream I found myself living in these past few months.

Grace and I taking on Amsterdam! It's
so wonderful to reconnect with friends and
travel through Europe together.

A walk through the Red Light District. Bicycles align

 the canals and people stream through the area to visit a

 place quite unique to Amsterdam.

            We walked along the streets and made our to dinner with our other friends in Amsterdam this weekend. Over some very unexpectedly delicious sushi, we planned out our night and the weekend’s travel. Later, we made our way through the layers of canals and into the heart of the city. The canals are actually a very helpful mapping system because they take the shape of an onion. We simply followed the curved canals into the center and based our direction off of a consecutive number of canals. Of course, no trip to Amsterdam would be complete without a visit to the Red Light District. I still found myself in a bit of shock along with the other girls, even though this had been my second time seeing this area. The Red Light District is actually quite beautiful, filled in with canals and bright lights. We made our way into various pubs and through the streams of people. Eventually, we found ourselves following the canals outwards and back to our hostel.

On our way to dinner, we found ourselves by the "I Amsterdam" sign. In all of our excitement, we stopped for a selfie.

It had been quite a long day. Like every trip, we checked our sleepiness at the door and made room for an exciting evening. We were relentless to experience as much of the city as we could in the short weekend we had there. Our eyes began to dawn over and exhaustion swept over all of us. A good night sleep was necessary for the earlier morning that awaited us.