The Land of Drugs and Hookers..

Yep those are actual hookers where the red lights are..

Amsterdam!  Now I didn't experience first hand any drugs or hookers but I hear that's what this city is all about.  During my last vacation I spent about 6 days in Amsterdam, a city I have wanted to visit for a long time.  The first couple of days there were spent with two of my friends who I also was in Cologne with.  When we were planning our trip we were having some trouble finding a decently priced hotel or hostel, and the only thing we could find were 10 room dorms with bunk beds.  I like to stay at hostels to save money, but I really didn't feel like staying with 8 people that I don't know.  So we were looking online and came across a houseboat in one of the canals, where we could have our own room, and it was the same price as the dorm rooms we found.  Sounds cute and different, right?  Hmm that's what I thought too.  So the first day I get to the hostel (I was by myself because I took a different train) and when I got to the houseboat, I was seriously at a loss of words.  I'm sure most of you know that this is not something that happens very often, but literally.. speechless.  The room was so small that it was pretty much impossible to have 2 people standing in it at one time.  And the bunk beds were pretty much the exact length of my body.  Oh, and did I mention that it actually was built in 1913??  It got to a point where I was just laughing.. it was literally something that would have happened in a National Lampoons vacation movie.  Not in real life.  Well on the bright side, the people that owned it were super nice.  And I did hastily find a new place to stay the following night, which was about 10x worse.  Thank god my mom was on her way and we could stay in nice hotels from that point on!

The first couple of days my friends and I wandered around the city, saw the beautiful canals, did some shopping, ate lots of french fries, and even some Argentina steaks, which is apparently a "specialty" in Amsterdam according to the number of restaurants there.  The thing that I noticed there almost right away is the CRAZy amount of bikes everywhere.  People there seriously do not own cars, and there are special roads just for bikes.  You have two toddlers to put on your bike with you? No problem,  lets not even put helmets on them.  Ask a girl out on a date?  She hops on the back of your bike.  People carry their heavy groceries on the handlebars like they're not even there.  I mean I have problems even balancing myself on a bike... these people have some serious skills, for reals.  

On the third day.. my MOM came to visit :)  Little Carol Ann came made it all the way over to Amsterdam all by herself.  We are so proud.  I met her at the airport in the morning, showed her my NASTY hotel room, and we ventured out to do some sight seeing.  My favorite thing that we did was the Van Gogh museum.  There was a special exhibition going on so we got to see his most famous paintings, including Starry Night.  It was cool to see a painting in person that is so well-known. We also did a tour of the canals, and learned a lot about the city.  And most importantly, we ate lots of good food!  The first night we had dinner with my two friends that were still there, and the second night we had swiss fondu.  

After hanging out in Amsterdam for a few days we decided we wanted to try to see something new.  We went to the tourist office and they made some suggestions for other cities we could go to in Holland.  We ended up spending the day in a town called Delft, which is a little town about an hour train ride away from Amsterdam.  It was so cute!  Just like a smaller version of Amsterdam, but a lot calmer with very few tourists.  We walked around the canals, saw the new and old church, the market place, a windmill, and did some shopping.  I even bought a pair of genuine wooden shoes!  They don't fit very well, but they'll make a nice souvenir anyways.  I was very happy with my trip in Amsterdam overall, and I would highly recommend for anyone to go there!  Don't let the bad reputation turn you away.  If you really do want to hang out in the red light district, I'm sure you can get into trouble.  But besides that the city really is beautiful :)   

Delft, Holland