I was set to meet Matt Hager (my roommate from University) and our couchsurfing host in the main train station, but my efforts were frustrated by ticket machines that don’t accept cash or American credit and debit cards. Our host Sanne took Matt and I to meet some of her friends for dinner at a little restaurant called Skek, where we say in a secret little upstairs cubby with really low ceilings. It was a pretty legit little spot the Dutch girls had carved out for us.
We did a short walking tour through the city, meandered through the red light distract (which made me really uncomfortable the first time), and eventually made it back to Sanne’s apartment.
The next morning Hager and I walked around the city in the daytime to see what we could find. We smoked some joints in the park, which is a rite of passage for any visitor to Amsterdam, and made our way through the University of Amsterdam to meet for drinks with Annika, one of Sanne’s friends from the night before, and her friends. Annika offered to host Matt and I for the next couple nights in Amsterdam, and we jumped at the opportunity!
Hager and I managed to make another Walking tour of the city the next day, in an effort to save money. We ate some sandwiches and visited the Amsterdam Public Library, which is a pretty intense building with great architecture and 6 or 7 levels connected by escalators. Later we met up with Annika who took us out to a little pool hall near her house. We played a couple of hours of pool before going back to her apartment again and watching The Big Lebowski and half of The Jungle Book before crashing.
The next day we were mostly shut in by the rain, but managed to make some legit dinner with ravioli, ghetto french fries, and an epic salad courtesy of our vegetarian host, Annika. Soon enough Matt and I made our way out into the city where we planned to stay out ALL night, before I would catch a train to Utrecht, and Matt a train to the airport. After making conversation with a bum for awhile, Hager and I headed to a really cool little Jazz Club that had free entry. We enjoyed our store-bought beers that we brought into the Jazz Club to avoid the 8 dollar pints they served inside. We played some pool again, and made friends with some random Dutch girls who befriended us at about 2am when we were walking through downtown. One of them, Manon, ended up staying out with us all night until we hopped on our trains at around 6 in the morning.
My time in Amsterdam was pretty relaxed, and I didn’t really DO much, but it was fun hanging out with Matt, and making some Dutch friends. It is a big city that has a really small feel to it, and has a seriously unimaginable number of bicycles everywhere (to the point that there are multi-story parking garages just for bicycles, and underground parking lots as well). It went by quickly, and I was on my way to meet Stefan Wittens, my Dutch flatmate in San Diego from last year.