This weekend I went to Amsterdam. I decided to fly stand-by because the flights were extremely expensive. Unfortunately, the day before I left all of the flights filled up! It was a nail-biter getting on, but after being in the airport all day, I got on the last flight of the day. I landed in Amsterdam at 11:00 PM and was planning to meet my friends at the hostel. As I was walking down the jet-way I was thinking how RETARDED I am for flying to a foreign country, finding transportation from the airport, and trying to find my hostel all by myself. Luckily, my good friend Kendal had an inkling that I was on the flight and waited at the airport for me! I was so happy to see her when I walked out of security. We found a taxi and drove right to our hostel. We got there so late that we ended up just going to bed.
The next morning we began just walking around the city. Amsterdam is absolutely gorgeous. Since it was fall, the trees were bright yellow/orange with leaves falling. There are many rivers/canals that flow under all the streets. The only bad thing about it being in the fall was that it was freezing. It was about 4 degrees celcius (which equals about 40 degrees farenheit… I think). We went out for a nice breaksfast at a little bakery. We rented bikes and toured the city. But since it was so cold, we ditched the bikes and found warmer things to do. That afternoon we went to the Heinekan factory. We got to see the inside story on how beer is made. After that we went to dinner at an all you can eat Chinese restaurant.
The next day, we wondered the streets again. We got lunch at the Hard Rock Café to satisfy our craving for some American burgers, and boy did they taste good!! After lunch we went to the Anne Frank house. The line was extremely long but it was worth the wait. It is amazing to see what Anne Frank and her family had to live in for over 2 years. The Anne Frank house displayed photographs, film images, the diary, and original objects that belonged to her. After this museum we went to the torture museum. This was sad to see all the horrible ways they used to punish people in the day. That night we went to a little bar to celebrate the first day of Halloween!
On Sunday, I headed straight to the airport because I was flying alone and was attempting to take the public transportation to the airport to save money. I had no idea how long it would take me, so I wanted to go with plenty of time. I ended up getting to the gate 2 hours early. But there was NO ONE at the gate. So I just thought I was a little early. When it was one hour before departure, I began to get a little suspicious so I went to talk to a ticket agent at a different gate. I soon realized that it was daylight savings and the clocks had been set back an hour. So I was actually at the gate 3 hours early. But the flight was empty so I had no problem getting on.
Sunday night was Halloween. As soon as I got back to Alcala, I headed straight to Madrid to celebrate the festivities. Kim and I met up with some of our spanish friends. The first thing they did was paint our faces. In Spain, they celebrate Halloween but not like Americans. Everyone dresses like the dead, with blood running down their faces. No one was a princess or wearing a cute minnie mouse outfit. They painted black circles around our eyes, with a spider web coming from our forehead, and blood coming from our eyes and mouth. We ended up just hanging in the park with other local spaniards and then we went to a discoteca. I had a great halloween, and it was a great finish to my weekend.
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