Amsterdang it, we lost the match.

Okay, so it wasn’t a Chelsea match, but watching Leverkusen play was pretty darn cool. We got painted up like the rock and roll fans we are (my tour guide said ‘rock and roll’ a lot, so I’m helping him bring it back). The underdog may have absolutely thrashed our team, but I really didn’t care, I got to watch a European football match.

A small group of us decided to get away from our troubles (school) in Bonn for the weekend and head on a train to the Netherlands! Right off the bat, this trip had a huge plus going for it – the SUN. It had been very missed. I didn’t really know what to expect in Amsterdam. I knew of its reputation as a fairly liberal place (apparently it’s increasing in conservatism a little bit), about its history as Anne Frank’s home, about its icons of tulips, windmills and canals, but that’s pretty much it. I like that, though. I had the chance to walk in with a blank slate, and let the city talk.

We had some classic, tourist experiences – going too hard at the Heineken Museum (just kidding, we’re responsible), crashing our paddleboat into a canal tour boat (not that responsible though) (P.S. this was before the museum), and having a night-pizza-boat-tour of the canals. Sarah had the brilliant idea to check out the Van Gogh Museum, which was the unexpected star of my trip. I eavesdropped on professional art-viewers and learned a lot!

 Amsterdam is like a maze, and I felt like there were hidden secrets everywhere. It’s easy to miss the obvious. We found historic gardens tucked away in neighborhoods, like Beginhof, but we never managed the Red Light District, which I can’t be super upset about.

                                                                         

Dutch was a surprise; I had expected it to be much more similar to German. Luckily, most people knew English and were pretty friendly, so getting around was easy. Looking back, I loved the colors of the city and, a vast contrast from Germany. The flowers and landscape, the clothes of the people, the buildings, they all were so vibrant to me. So whimsical! I already miss walking along the bloomy paths.