While Amsterdam is more massively know for its infamous redlight district and legal highs, no one really focuses on the beautiful canals, bicycles and great art that the city has to offer. I mean who knew Van Gogh and Rembrandt are Dutch?
Oh did I mention that the Dutch has a strong reading culture? The moment I stepped on the train, all I see are people reading books? I had a nice conversation with a gentleman who worked at The American Book Company who explained how the Dutch came to appreciate knowledge and books! (I will be doing a review on this bookshop in another post.)
Also I never realized how cool Dutch language is. Quite similar to Malaysia, English is a second language and most people do speak English. I do believe it is a Germanic language so there were similar words in English and German so it wasn't that hard to figure things out...or does it? o_O
Initially the whole reason why I wanted to visit Amsterdam was because of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. Yup! I pretty much did my own book tour in the city. I really want to get into his mind and see what he'd seen while writing the book. And also fangirled a bit at every place that John had been to as shown in his vlogs! :O
From here on I will let the pictures do the talking as per tradition in most of my Thoughts From Places posts do.
At Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
Before our flight to Amsterdam, I experienced my first breakfast in England!
These 3 food items are for me alone. I um...was very hungry ok!
Best Crayfish sandwich ever!
Sweetest berries!
Our OMG-THE-PLANE'S-GOING-TO-CRASH face.
Finally arrived at Schipol International Airport.
We took the train to get to Amsterdam Central. We were trying to figure out how to make our way through and this was my attempt to be helpful. My first reaction when I looked at this board was, "Um...what?" EVERYTHING'S IN DUTCH!
Best Navigator in the WORLD!
Funny/scary story about our first train ride in Amsterdam. The pictures below were actually moments before we witnessed a robbery in the train. The first picture below was to illustrate where we were standing because since the train was full, we had to stand in this small cubicle space. It was really cramped and entered these other two guys in this cramped cubicle with us. Who would knew that these two guys were actually would-be robbers. Luckily we were safe and they didn't target us. They were actually targeting this older gentlemen who were sitting in the first class area. SCARYYYYY!
Insert coins and get your heated food!
My first view of the canals.
We stayed at this small backpackers place called Orfeo Hotel.
Our modest room. It wasn't ensuite and all we had was a big sink. My first question to Shira was, "Dude...how are we going to shower?" Let's just say we showered out of the sink or pretty much went showerless.
The street of my hotel. It was filled with all kinds of restaurants and bars. Mostly Italian restaurants. Fun Fact: Italian food is surprisingly cheap in Amsterdam. A whole pizza costs only 5 euros. In fact it's cheaper than Dutch food.
After checking in and rested for a bit (I managed to skype with my family!), we went out to explore the city. The first goal was to book tickets for the Van Gogh Museum.
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Our Translation: Humans do not urinate through their rectums. (Yeah, we pretty much butchered the Latin there. Hey we never said we were classy gals!)
Shira feeling up Hermes/Mercury. Classy.
Pretty Faces.
Rijskmuseum
After buying our tickets for the Van Gogh museum, we visited one of my must visit locations! This is where apparently John Green took his walks while writing The Fault in Our Stars. In fact one of the scenes were based in this park!
After buying our tickets for the Van Gogh museum, we visited one of my must visit locations! This is where apparently John Green took his walks while writing The Fault in Our Stars. In fact one of the scenes were based in this park!
A school located in Vondelpark! Man if my school looked like this, I would be so excited to go to school everyday!
Spot Superman and Marge.
*eyes roll back* WHAT IS THIS PERFECTION YOU CALL CRONUTS?! Basically a donut that has a texture of a croissant.
The crazy crazy line to enter Anne Frank's house.
"I want to twerk in front of this sign but I'm too shy so I'm going to disguise my attempt to twerk by pretending to take a picture of the sign." - Shira
We got too tired of walking by this point so we decided to get on the other side of the canal and watch people line up for the Anne Frank's house.
These last two pictures are of a high end mall that has pretty cool architecture. That day we decided to go for the Rembrandt art exhibit and it was great!
Parte 2 should be up soon!
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