Frommes on a Journey: Europe Vacation

I had forgotten that a friend of mine from college moved to the Netherlands with her husband last year, but she send me a message saying that if we were in the area, we should get together. We made that happen! Our bus from Brussels to Amsterdam arrived early afternoon. Happy 4^th of July! We made plans to meet up with Lauren at 7 pm. When we got to the hotel, our first order of business was to do some laundry. It had been about one week since leaving Cairo, and we were accumulating quite the stack of dirty laundry. Not knowing that it was going to take at least two hours to dry our clothes (we had two loads and only one dryer), was not something that was in my plans for the afternoon. We ended up hanging all of our jeans, underwear, and socks around the room, and we put all of our very wet shirts in bags until we got back that night.

We took the metro to the downtown area to meet Lauren for a drink and a bite to eat. It was so great to catch up with her! She is a great example of wanting to do something and making it work. During conversation, she mentioned that her in-laws were going to be in town later that week, and that they were going on a canal boat tour with the family on Saturday. We were more than welcome to join if we wanted to. We definitely wanted to, but that was the day we had planned to leave for Berlin. We had to check our arrangements to see if we could work something out.

After leaving her way later than I had anticipated (the company was too great), Zach and I walked around the Red Light District, because…we were in Amsterdam! It was everything I thought it would be….

The next few days was spent walking around and experiencing some of what Amsterdam has to offer. Weed, yes, that means weed. I’m not going to lie, I felt a little weird being in public and being high. No, that is a lie. I felt extremely uncomfortable being high in public. Zach, on the other hand, didn’t have a problem with it.

We decided to stay another night so that we could do the canal boat ride with Lauren and her family. I’m really glad we did that! Seeing the city from a boat was a whole new experience.

When we first got to Amsterdam, I had a little breakdown. I was feeling a big pressure to be a certain type of tourist. I felt that if I didn’t see certain things or take pictures of certain things, I wasn’t experiencing the city like I was “supposed” to. We have friends who have down weeks- to months-long trips and I was starting to compare this trip to theirs. Talking to Zach really helped, and that’s when I decided, “screw it!” If I went to a city and stayed in the hotel room the entire time, that was perfectly fine. It’s our vacation and we can do whatever we want! I felt a little more relaxed after that. I even stopped taking a ton of pictures.

Anyway, we are currently on our way to Berlin. (I wrote this yesterday.) It’s a 6.5-hour train ride and an even longer bus ride; we chose the train. I’m excited to go back to Germany, and this time, explore the capital.