Am - star- dam

What a great city. Honestly, Amsterdam feels and looks like its right out of a fairy tale. Between the beautiful canals and bridges to all the different colored buildings covered in ivy, Amsterdam is like a doll house and I felt like a Polly Pocket. In addition to ivy growing on the buildings, ivy even grows out of some of the bikes. I've never seen anything like the bike culture in Amsterdam. They are everywhere! And will run over anything! You have to be more careful about not getting hit by a bike than you do of a car. It seems relatively energy efficient, though...The streets are absolutely crazy though. Not only are there sidewalks, tram tracks and roads for traffic, however, there are also separate lanes for bikes, making crossing the street as a pedestrian quite the obstacle. Regardless, everyone who lives in Amsterdam are the nicest people. While it's such a small city, you can stop and ask anyone on the street directions, something that was refreshing to see.

While we mainly just enjoyed the spring weather and walked around the city, we did make it to the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum. When I went into the Anne Frank House I was expecting to see a replica of what her house actually looked like, but instead it was set up more like a museum. I actually had the chills though when we walked through the secret door behind the books case which led to the secret annex where anne frank and her family hid from the Nazis. I enjoyed the Van Gogh museum because I was able to see some of his paintings that I had never seen before in addition to some of the artists' works who inspired him.

Our hostel, the Flying Pig Uptown" is actually right next to Vondel Park, which is pretty much like the central park of Amsterdam. It was so beautiful there and when it was really nice there were a ton of people just lying in it. It was quite resemblant of minor field during the spring, if I might say so myself.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Amsterdam