Amsterdam Round Two

Hey guys,

I've been in Netherlands for around three weeks and things are still fun and exciting. Seeing as we only touched the surface of Amsterdam, we owed it to ourselves to go back. And this time we managed to see a lot more sites and really enjoy what Amsterdam has to offer.

We arrived at our cramped jailcell hostel in the afternoon. This didn't matter much because we didn't plan on staying there long anyways. So the first night we decided to go on a pub crawl. This comprised of 6 free drinks and in 6 different bars & cafes. We met some cool American girls at the beginning of the pub crawl. They are all on exchange in Barcelona. So we will definately take advantage of their local knowledge when we head over to Barcelona in a couple weeks. These girls knew how to party and it made for a fun pub crawl ;).

By 4AM we decided to head over to the infamous Red Light District. This place was something else. They were prostitutes in their own rooms with glass windows all along the alleys. It was crazy they would wave at you and try to get you in there. There were also many drug dealers walking around. They would walk by you whispering "cocaine, cocaine" or "ecstacy, ecstacy". It was like the Red Light District was something out of a movie. Like nothing I've ever seen.

The next day we made our way to the Van Gogh Museum. They had some pretty amazing exhibits. Going into this museum I didn't know much about Van Gogh. Very interesting place, and there were some amazing sculptures and paintings there. It was really cool to learn his story as well.

After our hour and a half period of pretending to be classy individuals we preceded to the Heineken Brewery Tour. It was a lot more commercial than I thought it was. I still don't really know the whole process of making beer. But I got to check out the DJ sim place and see a bunch of cool commercials. Not to mention I got three free beers and a free bottle opener!

Later that night we really wanted to check out the clubbing in Amsterdam. So we went to one of Amsterdam's most famous clubs, Escape. This place was huge! Defintaely the biggest club I went to by a lot. They were pumping the hard techno and the Dutch people were loving it. It was definately intense in there but by 5AM you are drained. But with that said, the Dutch definately know how to party!

The next morning we had to wake up at 9AM to check out at 10AM. As you can imagine, we were feeling like gold that morning. But once we hit the train for Maastricht I passed out instantly.

Overall, a great trip and I got to see things I never thought even existed. We will definately go back to Amsterdam but it probably won't be till end of October or November. We still have to hit all the other European destinations though. Only a week and a half till Oktoberfest! I hope you guys are doing well back in Canada and abroad...

Kean