Amsterdam!

Hi Everyone!

Sooo I know I'm not really good at keeping up with this, I'm sorry posts are so infrequent! I guess I'm just posting now after trips I take, so this will be the second to last one! Anyways, I spent this past weekend in Amsterdam! It was seriously amazing, and not all about drugs. I was a little nervous about that heading out, because I didn't want to spend an entire weekend surrounded by sketchy high people, but it wasn't like that at all! Amsterdam gets a really bad rep as far as that goes, it's way less prevalent than we hear about. It's an amazingly beautiful place, and I felt comfortable as soon as we got there! We had to scramble a bit when we were searching for a hostel, so I think all of us were a little bit nervous that the one we ended up booking would be not very nice, but we couldn't have been more wrong! It was in an absolutely perfect location, pretty much on Dam Square which is very central. The crazy thing about the hostel was the stairs, they started out pretty normal but as we got higher up they became mostly a ladder! I'm happy to say I survived though, not a single fall.

We fit so much into the weekend it was crazy, I'm not sure if I can remember it all! But I'll try. We got in kind of late Thursday night, so we just made our way to the hostel, quite easily and successfully. Friday we started out by going to the Flower Market, which is this row of stalls right alongside a canal, they all have glass on one side so when you're in them it feels like a cruise ship! And they sell a huge variety of bulbs and seeds, I wish I could have bought some for people back home, but the US frowns on that. There were also a bunch of touristy shops so we looked at all the cheap souvenirs. And Cheese! We probably went into 6 cheese shops over the course of the weekend, they have all of these samples out and the strangest things in their cheese, like Pesto Cheese! It was really good, tasted exactly like pesto. and it was bright green! Mom, you probably would have loved all of the goat cheese samples, but I stayed far away from them.

 Next we went to the Van Gogh Museum. They have a really big collection of Van Gogh and also other artists, so we spent a long time there looking at everything and taking it all in! They also had an exhibit on Picasso, that was really cool too. The weather was beautiful, so after the museum we walked over to the museum square and ate lunch outside, we also took pictures with the I. am.sterdam sign, along with every other tourist. That was fun though, we met some funny people waiting around for our turn. Later in the day we decided to wander around the canals and explore a different area. We ended up finding the Anne Frank House, and thankfully we decided to go in then, because when we passed it a few days later the line went all the way around the block! Being in her house was incredibly surreal and a pretty difficult experience, I'm really glad we did it though. I was amazed by how many languages the tour was available in, there were probably 10 different ones.

Saturday we decided to do a Bike Tour, which was probably the best decision of the trip. It was a gorgeous day, almost 70 degrees! We were biking around in t-shirts. It was a great way to get to know the city also, everybody bikes there so except for the mass of bright yellow bikes we were practically locals! It really helped to put everything in perspective though, and understand how the city was connected. We saw a ton more sites also, and the tour guide explained a lot about the history, she keept saying it's a new city; it's only been around since the 13th century!

After the bike tour we wandered around the city more, did some souvenir shopping, and met up with some Clark friends for dinner! It was actually a pretty clark-filled weekend, we randomly bumped into 2 separate groups of Clarkies! It was real crazy! On sunday, we did a Canal Cruise, which was a great other perspective to get on the city. It was really fun to be in a boat again too! Made me start to get very excited for summer. We ended the trip with one last walk around the city, and then spent forever at the airport.

Now I'm back in London for another 2 days of my internship, a few papers, and finals next week! I can't belive the program is over already, but I have one last trip to Rome and Milan, and then I'll be home on April 20th!!

Can't wait to see everyone!