We arrived in Munich at 8:15 AM with just enough time to go the bathroom and relax for a little bit before our 9 AM flight to Amsterdam. When we got into Amsterdam at 11:30ish (very nice airport, by the way), our first stop was Burger King. There’s nothing like American fast food in a foreign country! To get into the city, we had to take a train to the Amsterdam Centraal station which is about a fifteen minute ride from the airport. Once we got there, we really had no idea where to go from there. We stayed at the Marriott (such European travel, I know) and after talking to a few Nederlanders, we found the trolley that would take us almost directly to our hotel.
It was raining in Amsterdam when we arrived (I’m starting to think that rain is the only weather that Europe ever experiences), and after we checked into the hotel, we freshened up a bit before we went to explore the city. Jenna flew into Amsterdam the previous day, and her and her friends were touring the Anne Frank House and planning on going to the Heineken factory at 3. We decided that we would meet up with them there at that time, so we spent the early afternoon wandering around the city. Amsterdam has SO many good pastry shops that are hard to pass up. We went into this small shop run by an old woman. We bought our pastries, walked out, and decided that we wanted to sit down so we went back in and proceeded to walk back towards what we thought were tables to sit at. However, we were apparently entering the old woman’s personal living quarters, and when she saw us go back there, an extreme look of terror came over her face. She looked like she was shaking and said, “I don’t know what you’ve came to do but I’m nearly closed!”, as if we were planning on ransacking her place. We got a few good laughs thinking that anyone could think that we, a group of 20-21 year old girls, were going to raid a shop especially after we just bought pastries there.
After that we met up with Jenna and her UMD friends for the Heineken Experience. I’m really glad we ended up doing this, because it turned out to be a lot cooler than I expected. The museum gave you the history of Heineken, explained how they make it, and showed other things about the beer such as commercials, and references and appearances in pop culture. There was also a motion simulator ride where you got to “be the beer” as it was getting produced. One of the rooms at the Heineken Experience had karaoke in front of a green screen, so of course Jenna, Heather, and I decided to try our hand at signing some Dutch song – it wasn’t very successful. We taste tested a beer and were eventually led to a bar at the end where we got two more free beers! We hung out there for 30-45 minutes. I definitely recommend the Heineken Experience for anyone who goes to Amsterdam!
We desperately needed a nap so we headed back to the Marriott to catch a few Z’s. We ended up waking up at 8:30/9 and decided to go to the Hard Rock Café near the hotel, because it was too cold and rainy plus we were too tired to go anywhere further. We went to bed immediately after dinner.
On Saturday, February 27th, we woke up pretty early, because we wanted to go to the Anne Frank House and we heard that the lines get pretty ridiculous for it. It was STILL raining (no surprise), and we waited in line for 1 to 1.5 hours in the pouring, freezing rain, but this was something that we really wanted to do so we didn’t mind all that much. It was so surreal to actually be in the house where Anne Frank hid and wrote her famous diary during the time that the Nazis occupied the Netherlands. We went through the actual passageway blocked by a bookcase that separated the annex from the rest of the house and saw Anne’s room with posters that she put up during the two years she was in hiding. We also saw all the other rooms such as the kitchen and bathroom (that they couldn’t use during the day because of the running water that might have given away their location) and her parents’ and sister’s rooms. At the end of the house was information about their capture and the ultimate deaths of all the Frank family members excluding Otto, the father, who survived. One fact that I learned that I didn’t know was that, to this day, they still have no idea who it was who left the anonymous tip that gave away the Frank’s secret location.
Next, we went to the Pancake Factory which apparently is pretty famous and a “must-do” in Amsterdam. We got a table after waiting about 30 minutes; I ordered a “pancake” (which was actually more like a crepe) with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. It was absolutely scrumptious. They had some pretty absurd combinations of pancakes; Heather and Hannah got one with banana and cheese – sounds weird but they said it was really good. We hung out there for a while, enjoying our delicious lunch and freedom from the cold.
When we finally left, we walked around the city for a while, going in and out of shops. The day before we ran into the famous “I AMsterdam” sign in passing, so we wanted to find it again to get some pictures in front of it. It has graffiti on some of the letters which is so sad! We journeyed back to our hotel to get ready for the night.
There was no way we could go to Amsterdam without checking out the notorious Red Light District. We stopped at the most unentertaining, unsatisfying Japanese hibachi place for dinner on the way – a definite disappointment since Kyoto in Florham Park is never a let-down! The Red Light District is absolutely ridiculous; there are gross shops and brothels all over the place. The prostitutes stand doorways with red lighting which is so awkward because you are face-to-face with them; I made eye contact with a few, and it was kind of uncomfortable for me. Men go up to the doors, talk numbers (I guess), and then go into a back room with the girl. I was shocked to actually see numerous amounts of guys actually go in. So nasty. On our way home, we got lost but since practically everyone speaks English in Amsterdam, so we stopped some people (that were on bikes, of course) to find our way back. One thing about Amsterdam that I noticed was that it was similar to Venice with all of the canals but has roads. I liked Amsterdam tons more than I liked Venice though.
On Sunday, we woke up at 9:30ish and went to “Bagels and Beans”; I got a plain bagel with cream cheese – YUM! I miss bagels so much. Amsterdam literally has every type of food. I could definitely spend a lot of time there because there is always something different to eat! We checked out of our hotel, because our flight was at 2:20, took the tram to Amsterdam Centraal, and from there caught a train to the airport.
We got to our gate only to find out that our flight was delayed and now scheduled to arrive in Frankfurt at the same time that our connecting flight was supposed to leave. Our flight out of Amsterdam left even later than that, and I almost think that it shouldn’t have even taken off at all -- there was so much turbulence. I’m serious when I say that I thought I was going to die. I literally have never thought that I was close to death as much as I did on that flight. The stewardesses and steward couldn’t even finish the drink service because of the awful turbulence. One of the girls I went with, Krista, had her phone in hand ready to call her mom, a girl behind me was crying and holding the steward’s hand, and another person was praying. I am not exaggerating this at all. At one point I just wanted the plane to land ANYWHERE just to get out of the air. Luckily, we all survived the plane ride from hell.
We got to Frankfurt at 5ish and found out that the flight we were supposed to be on to Rome was canceled anyway (along with about 90% of flights out of Frankfurt). We then had to wait on a SEVERELY LONG line to figure out what to do next. There were so many connecting flight cancellations, and when people would arrive in Frankfurt, they would cut the line. We literally stood in line for about two hours then finally got to the front; grown adults were accusing us of cutting when we had patiently and respectfully waited our turn. We were there for longer than most of those people anyway. It was a borderline angry mob directly towards us, and they were trying to tell us that we “came out of nowhere”. I was so angry, and we were not going to let them push us around just because we were younger.
The woman at the counter told us that we had two options: wait standby for the 10:30 PM flight back to Rome or get put up in a hotel (courtesy of Lufthansa) for the night and have a guaranteed ticket for the 3 PM flight. We decided that we might as well wait around and see if we could fly out that night; luckily, they had plenty of room for us, and we finally made it back to Rome. What an exhausting day!
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