adventures in amsterdam

this past weekend nick & i went to Amsterdam! it was a ton of fun: i had never been before and nick had been about four years ago. we left right after nick left work on friday, and it was a definitely an adventure from the very start. our taxi driver was driving like a maniac and we almost did not even make it to the airport in one piece. we got through security alright and on the plane but right when our plane was going to land in Amsterdam it pulled up (due to wind apparently or at least that is what they told the lady in front of me that was crying her socks off). i felt horrible for the woman but was relieved there was someone else freaking out instead of me - i kept mentioning this to nick multiple times that CLEARLY i was not the worst person to fly with. :)

we thought after our botched attempt to land that the rest of the traveling to the hotel would be easy breezy, clearly the travel gods had different plans. we tried to buy train tickets and the machine refused to take our credit cards, and would take NO cash and only coins. so we decided to grab a coffee & break a €20. we got the coins and went back to the machine and successfully bought tickets. we then ventured down to get on the train and... they had just cancelled it with no plans to have a new one for quite sometime. nick just decided we were taking a taxi and this point... a very expensive taxi... haha.

all the travel woes were worth it ... because WE WON THE GAME against the Netherlands! what an absolutely incredible match! in the 89th minute we were down 3-2 and miraculously came back.  see the video below for the 3rd goal and a picture of us at the stadium! it was incredibly awesome to be there and i cannot wait to go to more soccer matches in the future. nick and i met up with some of our SAE buddies and their pals at a bar next to the stadium afterwards. was pretty cool seeing GA people halfway across the world. the bar was packed full of Americans so we of course proceeded to sing the national anthem (see below for video, haha!)

on saturday, nick and i decided to eat at a cafe in downtown amsterdam. it was pretty phenomenal: i had the best hummus in this world & a chicken panini (see below for pic!). nick then dragged me to a museum (shocking) and we proceeded to look at paintings and Netherlands relics for the next few hours. honestly, it was pretty cool and we got to see some famous paintings from Rembrandt & the likes. after leaving the museum, we went to a brewery that was shaped like a windmill (yes, a windmill) !! my high school exchange student from Germany, Natali, came by to meet us. (see pic below!) she's been living in Amsterdam for several years and it was SO awesome seeing her after ten years! after the brewery, she took us to an Indonesian restaurant that she loved and it was absolutely amazing.

on sunday, nick woke up at the crack of dawn to go out and take some pictures without me. as many know, nick has become very interested in photography. he already wants an even fancier camera and will be giving me his (yay!) maybe then i will be able to get better pictures on here and faster because if it was up to nick we wouldn't post pictures until a year later. i met him in the city and after attempting to see the Anne Frank house (because that was really the only thing i wanted to do in Amsterdam but the line was 5 hours long) we decided to save that for the next trip and just walk through the canals and the city. Amsterdam is GORGEOUS. we had a ton of fun and stopped at another cafe, which apparently is quite the european thing to do. the two couples in front of us on Saturday had been at the cafe for several hours and were definitely not going anywhere for the next few hours.

luckily, our travel trip back to Hamburg was quite uneventful and peaceful. a cab to the airport, the flight was on time and landed successfully, and trains to get back to our apartment.

...Amsterdam, i'll definitely be back again.

next up: Copenhagen, Denmark