Callin' from Holland

Out of all the places in the world, I never thought I'd find myself in Amsterdam, and at the way our trip started out that morning, it looked like I was never going to get there. Here in London, it never snows, but for some reason when we woke up that morning there was two inches already on the ground and more in the air. All flights were cancelled, until at least noon, and the city was on the edge of going into a state of emergency because of a few snowflakes. Out flight wasn't until 7:20 that night so we were fine because later that day it got a little warmer and began to rain.

We booked a bus to and from the airport that would pick us up a street away from the college, but for some reason we couldn't find the bus stop.. what a sup rise. We saw the bus we were supposed to take stopped in traffic so we ran with our luggage to catch it, but when we caught it at a red light, the driver said it was on the way home, not to the airport, and pointed us out to where we had to stand for the right bus. It was like a movie as the next thing I know one of the buses hit a ditch and splashed me head to toe with wet mud... I was not a happy camper. We stood for a while until we saw our bus pull up on the other side of the park. So of course we took off running, and of course we missed it. These buses only run every 20 minutes so we were pretty fricked. Finally, another one showed, but it drove right by us. That's when we learned we had to flag it down in order for it to stop, even though we were at the bus stop. By the time we got a bus it was a little past five. The bus driver said we prob wouldn't get there until seven so we were pretty worried, but we got there at 6:30 and made it to the gate by 7. It didn't' matter though because the flight was delayed.

So we were in Amsterdam fairly quickly, but since the flight was delayed we were pressed for time to take the train into town and take the tram (which stopped running at midnight) to our hotel. We barely made it, but we got there and found our hotel just fine. The hotel was a pretty nice, and everything you would expect a hotel to look like. The receptionist gave us our key and told us we had to go downstairs and outside to get to our room. Which we did, but when we started to look for our room number on the rooms connected to the hotel we couldn't find it. When we went back to ask exactly where it was, that's when we learned that our room was actually this one room shed about twety feet away from the entire hotel in the backyard. It was a little scary at night when we heard banging on the side of the room, but we survived.

We woke up early for breakfast and then headed to the Anne Frank House. It was the actual house that Anne and her family hid out in during World War II. It was very plain, but had such emotion projecting from every room. There were quotes from her diary printed on the walls, and all sorts of artifacts in each room. When we got to the bookcase and the hidden passage way I pretty much lost it. Crawling up these tiny vertical stairs into dark rooms just made it easy to feel the fear these people must have experienced. There were TV's in every other room that played interviews from many people Anne knew. Near the end, there was a room of every diary ever published about her, in every language, and in the center of the room was her actual diary in the original German in a glass case. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life and it was only a diary. Its just not a place I ever thought I'd be or things I'd ever see, but yet there I was. They also had American footage of the camp where Anne died when they invaded. It was too much for me to handle and we left shortly after.

We bought tickets for an all day canal ride and took it to the Van Gogh Museum. I've always been a fan, but only in a juvenile way, in the sense that .. "Yea starry night is really pretty but what's with the painting of his bed room?" Well starry night wasn't even in this gallery, and I'm glad because for the first time in a while I wasn't looking for something I already knew as beautiful. Instead I was looking at something that was right in front of me, and found the beauty in that. I had to laugh when I found Van Gogh's "Bedroom" painting in the center of the gallery. I'd seen it a million times reprinted and online and always thought it was silly and insignificant, but seeing in in person, close up, really made me feel like I had been looking at it all wrong. The picture itself was so intricately painted that it seemed almost not real. Next to it were a few things that Van Gogh had said about what he felt when painting it. From then on out, all his other painting made more sense and were much more lifelike to me. Each part of the gallery represented a different era of his life and told the story of his tortured soul. I can't really say I could relate, but it was quite experience seeing the world through someone else's eyes.

We got back on the Canal ride to go to the Red Light District. It was only supposed to be a 20 min ride, but it was our driver's first day and he kept getting lost in the canals or turning around and going back where we started, and two hours later we finally got there. We planned to only walk through in day light hours, but we couldn't find it, and by the time we did, it was dark. We made a turn down a dark alley and out of nowhere... there we were. There was a dim red glow as we continued down the extremal narrow passage. We turned our head toward the lights and there was quite possibly the scariest thing I've ever seen. It was just a row of windows with either a curtain drawn or a woman in Lingerie glaring down at me. It was pretty creepy. We weren't there for even three minutes before we ran to the nearest tram.

We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was so good to have edible food like chicken fingers, honey mustard, and Heinz Ketchup <3. class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">bicycle traffic lights then there are for cars. Its really kinnda creepy to see people of all ages pedaling to their destination.

The next day we went to the Heineken Experience, which was like Disneyworld for beer. They gave us free beer at every third way of the brewery tour, but I was the only jerk drinking soda pop in the bars. Whatever...I gave it a chance, but it was the most awful tasting thing I have ever put in my mouth... but everyone else seemed to be enjoying it. We got to go on this ride that showed us what it was like to be a beer bottle, and there was a room where we could sit and watch every Heineken commercial ever made. It was really neat and I learned about all the gross ingredients that makes that "crisp tasting party in your mouth"..or whatever. There was a history lesson involved as well, as we learned that Heineken was the first beer to be sold again after prohibition ended. Who knew?

After, we went to this big shopping center, and then to Aberax's which is one of Amsterdam's infamous "coffeehouses." The place was complete filled with smoke from the joints everyone was smoking, and the menu consisted of "space ... fill in the blank" Some of the girls got Space milkshakes... and Mourin and I waited in the souvenir shop. It wasn't exactly my idea of a good time babysitting girls that were now drunk and high and it started to rain so I suggested we get food and head toward the airport.

That wasn't exactly the smartest idea either because we ended up getting there much faster then expected and were stuck there for five hours after our flight was delayed. One of the girls brought UNO and I managed to lose every single game. We got home fine and too the bus home.

So another country, another crazy experience. I'm gonna take a break from traveling for a while, but we are in the process of planning spring break in Italy and Greece. Now that is going to be a crazy trip. We are going to see a lot of London this weekend so I'll have plenty of stories then too.

Hope everyone is doing well and missing me tons!

Love you!

Jenna (the girl who now survived sexy lady land, seen an original Van Gogh masterpiece, and walked in the footsteps of history)