BLOGMAS DAY 6: REEFER BLOGMAS

Okay, fine, I'll talk about Amsterdam. GEEZ.

The week of my birthday, I played hookie (okay, fine, I rearranged my schedule and had to work 3 days this week. Potato tomato or whatever I'M TAAARRRRED) from work (see, I should have put that BEFORE the last parenthetical to make things make more sense. That's how taaaarrrred I am. But I do say something at all. Even when I'm taaaarrrrred, baby.), and then between long parentheticals I spent a few days in Amsterdam. I'd wanted to go to Amsterdam since, well, before I got to France, but the time kept slipping away and train tickets kept being super pricey. Of course, during the weekdays, they're less pricey, and that's why I rearranged work. Aren't you glad you read this little story? I'm sure you feel incredibly enlightened now. This blog should be renamed the Buddha-factory for how enlightened I made you. Of course, then all of you meet each other and kill each other, which kills my readership, so dang.

YAY FOR SUPER OBSURE REFERENCES TO MILDLY OBSCURE QUOTES.

Ahurm.

Anyhoo, I took the train into Amsterdam Monday morning, and boy were my arms tired. Of course, my legs weren't, so I got to the hostel, checked in, blah blah blah, and figured that I'd go walk around the city and maybe check out that Rijktsmuseum I'd heard so much about why not. And that's when things started to take a turn for the mediocre. See, apparently most of the museum was under renovation. There were still some pretty paintings, but I'm not super huge on that time period, because I don't see the huge deal on some of the artists. Don't worry, I saw Night Watch and all that, but it didn't seem worth the almost 13 euros I paid to get in (for reference, the Louvre is cheaper, I believe, and that's if you don't get any of the discounts; the Amsterdam museums offered NO discounts and were still super expensive).

Still, it's a very photogenic city, and there was some pretty groovy interplay between sunlight and clouds, as should be showing up to the left if I manage to insert the picture correctly. Oh, also in front of the Rijktsmuseum I had a very delicious and quite well loaded (they let you do the toppings yourself; I'm a sucker for them) hot dog (I really should stop splitting my modifiers like this, but sometimes a bit of rebellion is good, right? Bwaha, cringe my English degree-ed members of the family/friends. Of course, you're probably already cringing at my blatant disregard for grammar, spelling, words, and everything else about the language, so carry on). It was, as I said in the last sentence before I got distracted by monologuing about my sinister plan to be mean to the English language, delicious. Also cheap. Amsterdam as a city is not super cheap, aside from the food. And for me, that's enough. Plus, it's free to look at the pretty buildings, which is fun for a bit. And of course there's the red light district, which I saw in daylight and at night. That was fun times. Wasn't interested, but it's always amusing to see the guys doing the vague walk of shame and see the various trends. On a later occasion we inadvertently wandered into the blue light district, but thankfully I noticed that and we left (which was pretty good considering how much coffee I'd had, as can be seen below).

Caffinated Rob thought this would be a great picture.
He wasn't totally wrong maybe?

Anyhoo, I met some groovy people at the hostel, and the next day I met some more. We decided to wander around until we found the Van Gogh Museum, and maybe we stopped off someplace before that and had some coffee. I feel like I might have enjoyed the museum more if I hadn't been so wonked by the caffeine- they give you some potent stuff in Amsterdam. Of course, I've heard from other sources that it's honestly a pretty underwhelming museum, which is a shame, because it's even more than the Rijktsmuseum. Anyhoo, we got out of there, had some delicious food (because it was my birthday and darn it, I deserved a chocolate covered waffle with ice cream).

We walked back from there and saw many strange things. Namely:

A chess board I saw fit to photograph twice...

... and a gaggle of Dutch soccer fans.

And then I helped one of my friends get a bus ticket, because it seemed like the right thing to do. Not that he needed help, but everyone else was having a nap, and I was in no mood to nap. I was travelling, by God. Seeing the world, spending my last summer seeing things that, well, many other people had seen. But I would know now! And then I'd have a tangent where I'd seem to say great things that really weren't all that great! Because I'm running on empty (runnin on)! But yeah, we got the bus ticket, ran into more soccer fans on the train back, and then got food. And of course, it's still my birthday at the time, so I figure I'll have something solid. And boy, did I.



Worth. It.

 See, down the road from our hostel was a Wok to Walk and a Burger Bar. I tried the Wok to Walk the night before, and was initially craving that for dinner. Buut I figured that it had been a while since I'd had a burger, much less a good one. See, Burger Bar gives you a choice of beef, toppings, everything. I went with (iffin I recall correctly): Large size Black Angus (didn't spring for Kobe), bacon, onions, mushrooms, and cheddar, in addition to the lettuce, tomato, and sauce already on there. I also got fries with ketchup and mayonnaise, if only to see what the fuss was about with mayonnaise.

After that, there was some drinking (probably too much spending on booze, but birthday!), followed by a run for some bakery snacks and a small nightcap before going to bed. And of course, we got some pictures, so that was fun. Sure, you can see them. I didn't give any with last night's post, so you can have extra tonight.

Yes, it's blurry. It's hard to take a good picture at night on landscape. Not enough photons and all.

Clearly good times were had.

Of course, the next day, I had initially planned to go to the Anne Frank House. Buuut I went to the Resistance Museum in Lyon a couple of weeks before, and I didn't really want to get all depressed. Also, please don't crucify me, but I don't see the huge deal about Anne Frank in particular. So I went to the park with hostel friends for a bit before I had to run back to catch my train. It was a pretty park, and they were going to do some various substances there- I might have joined were I not going to need to keep reasonably composed on a train (almost said composted, which is what you do to your train tickets hahaha what an incredible coincidence OR IS IT).

Of course, I spent less time than I might have initially liked in Amsterdam, but I was honestly pretty happy with how long I spent there. I certainly spent too much on food on my birthday, but I guess that'll be a trend for the next few weeks- gotta profite before I leave France, right? All in all, I found the company incredible, but the city was rather meh. Pretty buildings, but pricey (and not super great) museums, and honestly not an incredible amount to do, especially compared with a lot of the other French cities I've visited. Maybe I didn't see enough- I know there were some other art museums out there, but I guess I wasn't in speedy traveller mode that week, coming off of Normandy with the folks and all. Anyhoo, to avoid ending on a total downer, I guess I'll have another little bit of Nutella and throw up a picture of a windmill- can't go to the Netherlands without windmills!

Maybe that's one in the background? Or maybe I just didn't get a picture of any. Okay fine, this ends on a downer.