“I’ll take you to the coffeeshop”

When we arrived in the city our buses dropped us off at the Heineken experience. There were about 5 buses so you can imagine the herds of people getting off the buses. Amsterdam also has bike lanes because a lot of the residents choose to ride bikes everywhere rather then driving. I find this an awesome method and wish other cities would follow along. Everyone getting off the buses stood directly in the bike lanes and let me tell you, bikers on the trail do NOT stop. I’m sure multiple people got hit and or yelled at.

We began our hike to the hostel we were staying at. We continued to walk and I could tell people just wanted to get to their rooms and take showers. After an extremely and what we found to be an unnecessarily long walk we arrived at our hostel. Of course this trip was not in the best organized fashion and we stood outside in the cold

for another 45 minutes as the leaders were getting our passport numbers for the rooms. You know, because they couldn’t go ahead and get our numbers on the 14 hour bus ride. #dead

The next hour I don’t really remember due to my lack of concentration. I remember that we were in the dining area for forever and it took the leaders a while to distribute the keys. I kinda just wanted to bring my bag along as we walked around Amsterdam. I mean this was valuable time I could be spending site seeing! We finally got to our room and dropped our stuff off. Luckily I had a four person room with Kara, Keli, and Leah. I knew them all so I didn’t have to be worried about people stealing.

Naturally I was starving so we decided that we would do something historic and something fun on the first day. We all decided on just going ahead and doing the heineken experience. WE walked around and found a nice little “snack shop” and stopped there for food. Finally we headed over to the Heineken experience. I remembered this from my bestie Liz Wagstaff. She studied in Dublin over the summer and I remember hearing and seeing pictures from her Amsterdam trip. I was excited.

The tickets were 15 Euros. A bit pricey but I knew that this was something I wanted to do. We went in and of course it turned into picture land. We blew through the first parts

pretty quickly snapping photos. It was a really large brewery and museum. They even had a ride along the way. It turned you into beer. It was fun. Of course my favorite parts were at the end where we had a free sample with a funny guy. We also got wristbands that had two notches on it. You could trade them each for a beer or you could use both and learn how to pour your own pint. I am a guy, a thirsty guy so naturally I said screw the pouring I just want two beers. And that is what I did.

I dare say that were were all a bit tipsy. Just from two pints and a sample. But we were exhausted and tired so that did not help. It was now time to move on to other places. THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT!!!

If you have ever seen an Amsterdam map, it’s beautiful. It is also so hard to read. I think it was because we had in our minds our hotel at a different location then it was. Haha. Getting to the Red light district was easier said then done. We wanted to go to the RLD in order to go to an authentic coffee shop. ;) And please don’t look at me like that. I am in Amsterdam “pepsi” as the greater ones call it is perfectly legal and I am 21. :P

We finally got to one after walking into a few. Its not like any of us are that knowledgeable about buying “pepsi.” I took the lead and just went in and looked at the menu. The “pepsi” we decided to buy was entitled, “AK-47” Perfect right? I was also expecting things to be pre-rolled but thats not always the case. I had to roll my own “pepsi” in hopes of doing it right.

I was just smiling around at all the people. A lot of the people in there were in their 40s. They probably just got off work and came in to smoke a joint and relax. How amazing their lives must be. The bag of “pepsi” we bought was huge so i only rolled one. When we left I decided since I was the teacher back in the shop that I was not going to be the navigator. My head was not on right to read a map. I was only in the state of mind to put one leg in front of the other.

We got lost. The good part about getting lost, however was that we got lost in the RLD. haha. we did get to see the women in the windows and have a laugh about it. And I mean that it is really just a women in a black light window wearing a white bikini. oh my.

When we finally made it back to the hostel it was like 11pm. I know right we got back early but all of us were exhausted and (insert synonym for high) We crashed to prepare for another long day.

Sorry friends and family for this blunt blog. (get the pun??) Your little boy has grown up.