"Amsterdam...is a dream of color and tender tones." -M.E. Sherwood, 1897

Oh, I am a little bit in love with Amsterdam. I spent the weekend there with 5 of my friends, and it was great! I wasn't really sure if I would like it or not, since I envisioned a kind of seedy city full of prostitutes and potheads, but it was actually really clean, beautiful, and very quaint. Some parts of it reminded me of Georgetown, oddly enough, with the row houses and such. Amsterdam has many canals in concentric circles in the city, so it's full of cute little bridges and pretty walkways. Also, everyone there rides bikes! It's so cute - they have special lanes for people on bikes, and they will not hesitate to run you over. But, everyone rides their bike, which I think is just fabulous. Also, the Dutch are so friendly, and they speak perfect English. It was a really nice change of pace.
We took the Thalys train on Friday morning and arrived in Amsterdam around 2 p.m. We went to our hostel, which was perfect - it was relatively clean, and we had a room with 3 sets of bunkbeds in it - great for the six of us, and we had our own bathroom. The first thing we did (typical college students that we are) was go to the Heineken factory. It was so neat! They walk you through and show you how it's brewed, and there's this little ride that jostles you around as if you were a beer bottle in the factory - kind of cheesy, but fun. You also get three free beers with the price of admission, which was nice. :) Ooh - outside of the factory, I ate the most delicious doughnut I had ever had, called an appelbollen. It was rolled in sugar and had warm apple compote in the middle - I highly recommend them if you ever make it to Holland.
After the Heineken factory, we walked around a bit and then went to an Argentinian steakhouse (weird, but there were a ton of them there) for dinner. It was pretty good. We asked for a carafe of water, and they only had bottled water, but the waitress went in the back and made one up for us. We couldn't believe it - in France, they would have just said, "screw you" and moved on!
Post dinner, we went to a coffee shop, which actually doesn't sell coffee. I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain. I then enjoyed a typical Dutch baked good, about which I won't elaborate. It was definitely a learning experience.
Saturday morning found us at the Anne Frank museum, which was very very tiny, but so well done! It was very moving to see where and how she lived. They still had the pictures of movie stars up on the walls of her bedroom where she pasted them. They also had her actual diaries, which were really neat to see. After Anne Frank, we went to the Van Gogh museum, which was also interesting. We were disappointed to find out that Starry Night, his masterpiece, is actually at MOMA in New York. Whatever.
For the rest of the afternoon, we walked around the city. I saw the flower market, with thousands of tulips, and the Red Light District, which was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. Basically, each woman (I wouldn't call them ladies) stands in her own window in her underwear to conduct her business. (I'm trying to be polite, here.) All of them were hideously unattractive.
That night, we went out again in Amsterdam. We found a Guiness pub and played a lot of foosball, among other things. Everything there is so much cheaper than in Paris, which was super.
I guess that's about it for Amsterdam. I've (finally) put up the Rome photos, so check them out!