Note: As it turns out it is pretty hard to keep up with a daily blog... For two main reasons: one I don't always have easy (or cheap) access to the internet and I don't always have the time to write my entries. What I have been doing though throughout this trip is to keep a bullet points of the day on my iPhone so that I can recall well what happen 10 days ago. I'm in Florence right now and I hope to be able to catch up a bit tonight.
Amsterdam here we come! I was pretty excited to go to Amsterdam during this trip... not only because of the tolerance to marijuana (just kinding... I couldn't care less about this) or because of it's interesting Red Light District (I was just really curious about this) but also because I was to see my friend Kate :) We arrived in Amsterdam around 1pm and Kate was available after 6pm so we had 5 hours to see a little bit of the city before I could get a hug from Kate.
First we had to check in our hotel. I had made reservation to the CitizenM hotel. This is a really funky place. I have never seen something like this before. First this is a self check in hotel. Kind of like the airport. There is a bunch of computers at the entrance and you activate your own key. Pretty cool. Then the room! It is tiny but it doesn't feel small. It is exactly as wide as a kind size bed... and there is no bathroom... well the toilet is in the middle of the room in some kind of tinted glass cylinder (so you can see the silhouette of the person sitting on the toilet but can't see through the glass). The shower is also in the middle of the room in a glass cylinder as well but this time the glass is not tinted so you can give a nice show to whom ever is in the room at the time. Oh and I allmost forgot. There is neon lights around the top or the cylinder that changes colors.... there is also a nice remote control that allows you to change the mood of the room (music and colors or the neon lights), play with the blinds and get any free on demand movies... Great hotel if you are with a partner and not a coworker... well I guess that depends on people:)
After spending way to much time in the hotel, Mike and I finally started to move. We jumped on a tram illegally. I was trying to figure out how we could buy tickets and Mike was just enjoying the free ride. This was killing me internally... but I got over it when we jumped out without getting caught. I was determined to not do this again though. Without knowing where to go or what to do we managed to stop at the perfect place. Leidensplein or something like that. Lots of restaurants and tourists... and CYCLISTS!!! I have never seen that many bikes in my life. People cycle everywhere and that is great. There is way more bikes than cars on the roads. There are bikes locked everywhere... old looking bikes and very heavy bikes.
Mike and I just walked around all afternoon. Today was a ok day, not the warmest but nice none the less. Lots of people on the roads. It is scary to see how the trams, cyclists and pedestrians can all share the same street. Amsterdam is not very big but it is beautiful. It was very nice to walk around and see all the canals... ok probably not all because there are so many... We didn't going any Coffee Shop but took some pictures for my brother :) We even got the time to walk to the red light district. It was still early and bright outside so it wasn't too crowed but there were already ladies in the windows... and tons of guys on bachelor parties... starting the festivities early.
By 6pm it was time to meet Kate. I am so glad that we got to spend some time together. We stopped at the grocery store.Kate cooked us some dutch dish that I can't remember the name of but which was delicious. Mike and I got to meet one of Kate's friend: Fred. We actually had dinner at his place. Another frisbee player... poor Mike. When the topic changed to ultimate I could see him tuning out :) Lucky for him we were also able to talk about something else.
After dinner Mike and I walked back to our hotel... I was actually excited to go back to play some more with the room. How childish am I?
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