Day 1 in Amsterdam

Hey All,

Today was our first day in Amsterdam and a successful one at that. The day started out with a free breakfast, which was great. I stuffed my face so it wouldn't be hungry for the rest of the day, which ended up being kind of true.

The first stop of the day was the Van Gogh museum. As we were waiting in line for tickets around 10am, we saw a guy rollerskating with a thong, a windbreaker and a swim cap....weirdo. Ha ha. When we finally got into the museum we saw a lot of Van Gogh's work. Although, I found out that its not pronounced like we say it, it is pronounced Van Gock (or close the that). Although I have to say that it was kind of disappointing. While we were able to see a lot of different pieces of his work, like sunflowers and lilies, we were not able to see starry night scenes. I really wanted to see those, but I guess they were on lone to another museum. We did get to see Rembrandt and Paul Gauguin. I think we are heading to the other famous museum there tomorrow which is called Rijksmuseum. It is supposed to be better than the Van Gogh museum, but I kinda doubt it.

After the Museum, we headed over the the Heineken experience. We took a tour of the brewery and got to sample some of the beer. Overall a good experience, but it probably was a little on the expensive side. We did get two free drinks with the tour which made up for it a little bit. They did have a lot of cool things along the tour though, for example, they had viewing booths where you could watch any commercial Heineken has ever made. Pretty incredible. Or how the company is connected to UEFA Champion league and had all types of soccer memorabilia including highlights from every player in the UEFA Cup. Exciting. The other cool part is that they had a party lounge set up, which was in a circular shape room and padded with leather. All the way around there was just one huge screen to watch this marketing piece that they had created. The final touch, was the ceiling was covered in bottles, it looked like one wave of green.

After that, we headed over to the red light district. I am so glad that we didn't go down there at night cause it was just a sketchy place to begin with, I could imagine it getting hairier late at night. The way the district was set up is that there are multiple alleys that you would walk down, each with doors on either side. Each door was a window door with a long red light above it. When you would look inside there would be a girl standing there in some lingerie trying to get you to come in. Behind her was a bed and sink. If there was someone with a girl, a simple curtain would cover the window.

After we got out of the red light district, we aimlessly walked around, but did end up trying those biscuits. I have to say there was two problems with them. One, they didn't work at all. Two, they tasted awful. Not worth the time or the money. Maybe we just have to go to a legit coffee shop and see if we can get anything there. I think we have kinda given up on it though, I mean, we tried it, just not what we thought the end result would be.

Chris and I are now back at the Hostel and are making plans for tonight. As for tomorrow we are going to see that one museum and a canal tour and then call it a day. Not much else to do. I don't think we are really going to head over to the Anne Frank Museum cause it just doesn't sound like a happy place. I think when we go to Berlin we will see a concentration camp which should be plenty.

Hope you guys are having fun across the pond. I will talk to you later.