Amsterdam

Got up early on friday (5:30am), I had all of my stuff ready to go. Biked to the train station, saw the train and ran to it! (didn't have time to lock my bike)... Got to Mainz, then Bingen and Düsseldorf, Venlo, Eindhoven and Amsterdam!!!!!!
Amsterdam! I had been there about a year and a half ago! and the place looked familiar, I remembered a lot of the streets.

Well that is not where I want to start though, I wandered around the train station looking for my friend Katrina. Our cellphones weren't working so I had a minute of panic when I discovered that the cellphone wasn't working! Amsterdam's central station is huge! therefore I thought I would take me a LONGGG time to find her! I decided to walk around and try to find her. I saw this person with a priceless face looking down (I don't even know the right words to describe this moment)... I ran up to her: "KATRINA!!!!!!!!!!!" I am pretty sure this was a glorious moment........

We walked around the city making our way to the hostel, got to the hostel and my friend had made a reservation under Katrina Denz, instead of Denny! cause the keyboards here are messed up!!!!... we were sent to another hostel because something about being the last ones registering... they gave us money to take the tram to go to the other hostel, we took the money but walked instead of taking the tram. We ended up in OREO hostel! oh wait: ORFEO hostel!!! hahaha... went up to the room left our bags and walked around the city.

Saturday, walked more, went on a tour with John. John was really funny, I don't think I have heard a person swear that much in 4.5 hours. I have a video that I will upload on facebook at some point. Walked by the coffee shop where one scene of Ocean's twelve was shot, and then we ended up sitting on the bench where Johnny Depp his father and mother sat!!!!!!!...

The red light district, stats for this place are crazy. Katrina and I did not know how exactly this bussiness worked. John explained it on the tour and this is how it is done: They rent the windows for 8 hours for 150 euro, you might think that this is a bit expensive until you find out that they could make 100,000 euro as tax income for one year!!!

In two years the government will close down all the coffee shops and the red light district, SO hurry up and get over here before this happens and you regret the fact that you never saw what the real Amsterdam was all about.

Saturday night, we saw a ladder going up to the roof of the hostel and decided to go up there and eat the groceries we had bought. A couple of Pb and jelly sandwiches, the sunset and a loud city was all we needed to have a great time. We decided to go to bed relatively early that night because we needed to get up ealy and go to the "I amsterdam" letters in the morning that way we could beat all the people posing by the letters. We climbed the letters, took pictures, picked up a few rocks for a friend (Hoffmeyer) that she will soon put back in the exact same spot!!!

Saturday was a great sunny day, I sat by the one of the canals for a about an hour while Katrina went into Anne Frank house (one of the greatest museums in Amsterdam I should say). While sitting by the canal and watching people go by on the boats I heard this "boom"... like if someone had fallen down somewhere near me. I turned around and there she was, this girl's head was about a feet away from me, just laying there, her eyes were openned but she wasn't saying anything, she looked at me and I got scared. The guy who was with her was trying to pick her up and asking her if she was ok, but she just wasn't saying anything... I don't really know if she just fainted or she had had a bit too much at a coffee shop --> perhaps she was starting to see green bugs flying around.....

Sunday was a rainy day but still a good day. I was a bit dissapointed that we could not find the big wooden shoe but I think they might have taken it inside the shop since it was raining. We got to the train station said bye to Katrina and waited for my train for about 45 min. I was exhausted, I thought my legs were going to fall out from my body after walking that much every day.

It was an awesome weekend. Tons of memories, laughed so hard that I almost peed my pants a couple of times but decided not to because I wasn't on the skinny bridge. The Bathrooms are not free in Amsterdam and I did not want to pay for them. A protest against not having public bathrooms for women took over in year 1577, about 2000 women walked to the skinny bridge pulled down their pants and peed on the bridge.

I got a few pics showing who came with me in this trip, they will be posted as soon as I get to the bench.

To finish up the weekend, got back at around 8:30 to the apartment; just on time to watch the New Zeeland-Spain game. Put on the spanish team t-shirt screamed the first three goals by "El nino, Torres". Then watched the videos and pics I had taken in Amsterdam laughed a lot and went to bed.

Work is rough after a long weekend....