Amsterdam (Part I)
I think that Amsterdam knocked Berlin down to #2 on my list of favorite cities to visit in Europe. I had no idea what to expect before going there and was completely blown away by everything we saw.
First of all, me and Mang-Git kept an eye on hostel prices for about 2 months prior to our Amsterdam trip but they always seemed to hover around €40/bed. Finally we just decided to split our trip up into 2 day trips since Holland is only a 2 hour train ride from our apartment.
Second of all, meet the hamster that came to Amsterdam with us! :) His name is Frederick and his bottom is permanently affixed to a stuffed, zippered heart that hangs on a string. I bought him just so I could say I brought a hamster with me to Amsterdam:
Anyway, for our first day there, we got the I (Am)sterdam card which gave us free access to a bunch of museums and coupons for a ton of free stuff. We spent most of our Saturday at the Diamond Museum, Van Gogh Museum, a boat tour of the canals, and looking for raw herring in an marketplace since we were trying to get the most mileage out of our tourist card:
Koelner Lichter
We took the 7pm train home to get home in time for Koelner Lichter, which is the biggest fireworks show in Germany (maybe even Europe, according to my manager). The best part was that it just happened to be going on in our backyard. It's a big thing in Cologne, because apparently there are ~1+ million people that come into town just for the show, so seats on boats and cable cars that night will go for at least 100€ each! At first, me and Mang-Git were concerned that we wouldn't be able to find a good spot because it was so packed. After wandering around by the river though, we hopped a fence and sat on the shore of the Rhine right across from the boat that was launching all of the fireworks.
The Germans apparently take their fireworks show very seriously. It was definitely beyond anything that I have seen in the States, even for the 4th of July. The show was divided up into 2 parts: 1 was a smaller exhibition of fireworks, and then there was a break for about 15 minutes while the big kahuna (the big boat with the big fireworks) made its way to the middle of the river to start the actual show. When the music started playing, the entire area around us absolutely lit up, but not because of the fireworks. Apparently it's tradition to hold up white sparklers at the beginning of the show, and we missed the memo, but definitely took notice when some idiot a few rows behind us dropped his sparkler into a bush and it caught on fire. Aside from that though, Koelner Lichter was incredible and definitely worth coming back for:
Amsterdam (Part II)
Our second day in Amsterdam was mostly unplanned since we had only bought the 24-hour I (Am)sterdam pass and it had already expired by the time we arrived. We ended up renting bikes and rode to the Eastern Docklands, which is right outside of the downtown-y area of Amsterdam. The Eastern Docklands used to be a major shipping port, but after WWII, things started slowing down and it turned into a wasteland. About 20 years ago, the Dutch government decided to restore it and make the area suitable for residential communities. Personally, I think they did a fantastic job. We rode our bikes around the area to check out the architecture, found a bench right by one of the smaller canals to have lunch on and a park with an awesome zipline. It was really amazing, I highly recommend dropping by the Eastern Docklands to anyone planning to visit Amsterdam:
We ended our trip with a paddle-boat rental, where Mang-Git freaked out whenever I tried to steer because he was afraid I was going to run us in to someone's houseboat. At the end, he was actually the one that rammed the nose of our boat into the side of someone's kitchen while they were cooking dinner :) Oh yeah, and we also managed to squeeze in a quick trip to a diamond factory before returning our bikes for the day.
That took much longer to relive than I thought it would. I'll save Paris for another time and start packing for Bulgaria now!
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