Tales of Nell's Excellent Budapest Adventure: Amsterdam: Our Happy Place

HI AMSTERDAM!

Tower of a church next to Anne Frank's house

Central Station!

HI GUYS! It's been way too long since I've been on here to update you on my special trips. So I apologize for the lack of informative post on my travels, but I am back once again to fill your brains with mindless material. SO first stop: Amsterdam, Netherlands. A group of 8 of us ventured off to Amsterdam the second weekend in October and my oh my, was it a trip. Of course, after the ocuch surfer hosting Grace and I cancelled 1 day in advance, we managed to land an incredible hostel last minute, that was on a boat! It was awesome! Hell yeah, staying on a house boat! So that was real cool.
Now for those of you who are not familiar with certain things Amsterdam is well known for, let me inform you. DISCLAIMER: the discussion of weed will be happening in this post so if you wish to not read about weed here and there, close your eyes or skip out now. SO... famous things in Amsterdam. WEED. weed is legal here, so you may enter into any of the many coffee shops and just order some weed to your liking. IT WAS FUN, I'll leave it at that.

Next thing Amsterdam is well known for: The Red Light District. Now that was something to see. I am not sure how exactly I felt about that. When we first arrived in it, I was utterly astounded. I was SO fascinated that this was actually taking place, legally and in such an organized fashion. Girls were literally standing in full length windows, under a red light, half naked trying to entice men into their rooms. Now I think anyone who knows me knows that I love the male race quite a lot, but I could not help but stare at these girls. Granted some of them were pretty I suppose, that is not why I was looking at them. I was looking because it blew my mind that this was their life and I could not seem to grasp it no matter how long I looked or how hard I thought. I would say among a couple others, I seemed to be the only one in the group who couldn't explore the district enough and could not seem to be anything but fascinated. However, that fascination wore off the next night when I went back. This time, I was devastated. I fel tsick to my stomach when I saw the same girls in the same windows, who I had just seen the previous night. This is when it hit me that THIS IS WHAT THEY DO, all the time. They stand in windows, almost like figurines on display, for people to walk by and stare at. Are they okay with this? Some maybe, but most of them, probably not. Who wants to stand in a window on display while they sell their body. For some reason, this second visit was not something I seemed to be able to handle. I couldn't look this time and I felt awful and uncomfortable and just so sad that this was these girls lives. As we left, I managed to make eye contact with this one girl who was absolutely beautiful and clearly my age. She had been there the night before, and seemed to be more modestly dressed than the rest. And when we exchanged looks, she appeared to look at me with a sort of hope and longing to be out on the street, living a life like I was, instead of standing behind a glass window. This made me feel awful and after a minute or so of this exchange, I had to walk away. This poor girl did not want to be there, and seeing that in her eyes was the hardest part. While some might think I am overly sensitive or too sympathetic for someone who "chose" to make this their life, well I disagree. Although yes this is their choice they have made and seems to be their job, you cannot make the claim that this is what they WANT to be doing. And I am happy they are doing it in a place with rights and protection, but I still wish that they had another chance, somewhere else. Now ask the guys what they thought of the Red Light District and you may get a more simplistic answer!

We managed to ride first class... first and last time us students will do this

bike bikes and bikes!

my human gps' You'll noticed i am never involved in maps or directions..... for obvious reasons.

Now aside from these two big draws, we saw many awesome things. I will present lots of them in photos below, but as a quick overview... SO MANY BIKES. There so many bikes everywhere! A local told me that so frequently people will spend 5 minutes looking for their bike, then when they can't find it, they will grab someone else's! And sometimes, 5 years down the road your bike comes back to you! How cool! Another thing I loved: THE STREET FOOD. Holy moly- we all know junk food is my favorite kind of food, and man was I satisfied. Chipsy King = the greatest french fries with cheese sauce I have ever eaten. Breakfast crepes, candy GALORE, gyros and pizza's, NACHOS, just I can't even explain how much good food there was. Then of course, we got so many mindless souvenirs in which were all quite worth it. But of course, if it weren't for Americans who would buy those stupid things anyway? The canals... EVERYWHERE! So beautiful, lined with flowers and shops. Little bridges cross over each one an the buildings on either side are so picturesque.

had to add this so everyone could appreciate Debbie Stirling's comment: "OH MY GOSH! Who fell in?!" hahahaha

our boat hostel!

Lastly, I would like to inform everyone, we did get a bit of education out of this trip. We were able to visit the Anne Frank house, The Van Gogh Museum and get ready... The Sex Museum! Now maybe the first two were a bit more educational than the last but since when is sex not educational? The Anne Frank house was absolutely incredible. It was so touching and such a wonderful piece of history. We were able to walk through the exact house she lived in, learn her escape routes, her hiding places, see original parts of the house and learn everything about her and her journey. We were visitors in her very own house seeing everything through her eyes, as close as it could be done. The one part that I loved the most was watching a video of her father, the only survivor, talking about Anne. He published her book, because that was her dream, and spoke wonders about her. I loved it because he really had no idea what a smart girl she was or all the complex thoughts she had inside her head and he had really grown to appreciate her and everything she stood for. This is why he made sure her thoughts were shared with the world. His love for her was so clear and so refreshing. She had made him so proud and it as like, even though he had lost her, she still lived on and she was still the biggest part of her life. I know I miss my daddy when I'm gone, and man oh man, I know he spends every day missing me ( HAHAHA ) so I can only imagine how her father feels without her. But I love the story because her thoughts are a part of him, which keeps them together. It was an incredible place to see. Definitely one of my favorite places I have been so far on my travels.

The Van Gogh museum was awesome- now I am not a big art person, actually we all remember the incident inside the museum (me mistaking some art work of some Chinese man's for Van Gogh's... that was nice) but I LOVED this visit. Seeing the famous paintings I have only read about in textbooks and seen replicas of was so cool! And these paintings are HUGE! I sort of found a new appreciation for artwork. I realized that there is a lot to see in one painting and how much one's life really impacts it. I loved all the bright colors. Some of us contemplated stuffing some of the paintings in my purse.... but then we decided it might not be so wise. So they are still there, if you'd like to go check them out. I ended up purchasing several of his paintings, the real ones obviously, to bring back because I loved them so much. It was great!

Of course, we also visited the sex museum and I will spare you all the pictures we saw and everything that was going on inside of there... but lets just say it was a glorified version of a sex shop and that back room at the movie store times 28764827 dating back to the mid 1900s. It was certainly something to see. Regardless, we had to see it. I guess maybe we learned a few things? "Learned".
Among other things, we explore psychedelic shops, ate lots of junk food and sat in giant clogs! We saw the I AMsterdam sign which was awesome, and of course I did one of my handstands there. We stumbled upon a quilt shop which was AWESOME and I explored it for mom! One of the funnier things we saw was a giant board that said "meeting point" on it at Central Station. On it there was a little note (pictured below) and for the rest of the trip I feared I'd find a note that said "Nellie, we went back to Budapest. Meet you there, JSBP." Luckily, that never happened. But poor Dora, she didn't seem to have the same luck as me. Again, see below.
Amsterdam was really an incredible trip and if I had more money, I'd be back there in a second. It was one of my absolute favorite trips and one day I will be back there. My favorite souvenier was a postcard with a cow peeing on it. I sent it home to dad for obvious reasons.