April 21st, 2010

We took a train to Amsterdam, a trip that was blessedly uneventful, with nothing stolen.  I sat amongst the baggage to keep an eye on our things just to be safe.  We got to Holland and managed to navigate through its subway system with all of our luggage.  Not an easy feat, the subways come a bit slower than what I'm used to and I don't speak any Dutch so it was an interesting experience.  In Belgium and France I at least knew how to read the street signs and whatnot, here I felt like a genuine tourist.

We arrived at a very hip hotel, the QBic. Outside of our hotel was a tiny car that Mom and I found quite hillarious.


 The hotel itself was classic Amsterdam, complete with neon strobe lights that for may be beneficial in adding a 'psychedelic' ambiance that many guests are seeking.  Mom, however, was not a fan of the fact that the bathroom didn't have a door on it.  She didn't like that one bit.

We left the hotel room to walk around downtown Amsterdam, where we found a store called Drake's! At first we thought it was a video store and we were mostly right.  But it was....a very adult video store.  Ah, Amsterdam.

We did Japanese for dinner and then, to add something authentically Dutch to the experience, we got Vla (drinkable pudding) and stroopwaffels, which are little waffle snacks with caramel in them that you can heat up and dip in your hot chocolate.

Having spent a great deal of the day in travel, we called it a night.