To Amsterdam!

I wake up, say my said goodbyes and head to the train station. (I feel like all my posts start with "head to the train station," but I guess that makes since). I get there pretty quickly and go to buy my ticket at the counter. The train ticket from Breda to Amsterdam is about 18 Euros. Now the regular train is 2 hours. The Fyra is only 1 hour - definetly worth the 3 euro extra. I don't want to get 20 euro in change so I just pay the 50 cent fee to get my ticket from a live human. Very friendly guy who ONLY charges me the 50 cents, not 1 euro. Also, I have my unused Fyra upgrade from yesterday with the canceled train. He just upgrades my new ticket to the Fyra for free (saving my 1.5 Euro). Nice guy!

I get to Amsterdam an hour later and figure out how to get to my hostel. After some confused wandering I finally get there (very close to train station and right in the heart of Amsterdam, Booyah!).

I get to my Hostel at about 1pm and can't check in until 2pm. I sit down, bust out the ol' iPad and start surfing the net. I notice across from me are two girls surfing the net on iPad 2 with the exact same logitech keyboard I have. I causally say, "nice setup over there." (Smooth, right?) They laugh and say they noticed the same thing. Turns out these two girls (sisters) are from California. They both got bored, quit their jobs and decided to travel the world as well. Awesome! Except they 1-up me, well 10-up me. They first spent 4-months traveling in South America and now are spending 4-months traveling Europe. Wow, now that is impressive.

After a little chit chat, they invite me to join them in renting bikes and riding around the city. Well, I am not going to reject new friends. I can finally check in, so I drop my bags off and am ready to go biking!

We get our bikes with out issue and head off through the city. Now, I can honestly say I don't think I have almost died as many times as biking through Amsterdam. Cars drive like crazy, scooters drive on bike paths, bike paths disappear and reappear at random and trams run all over it. I about got hit by a few cars, lots of other bikers, scooters and one tram.

Finally, we find the park we were looking for. It is a beautiful park for walking or biking. We bike through it, stop to take pictures and eventually get some snacks. The two sisters are Kelly and Megan. I have fun talking to them about their adventures so far, lives, future goals etc. Kelly wants to go back to school, but this time in Australia to become a Veterinarian. Megan works for a publishing house, is a grammar nut and wants to get a master in Communication or Journalism, also internationally.

After out snack we just bike around randomly. We finally end up at the I Amsterdam sign. Which is awesome, because it is on my list of things to see in the city. I get some great pictures planking it. Take some pictures of the sisters and we enjoy the beautiful weather for a bit there.

We continue biking around the city and seeing smaller sites, but nothing too exciting, just almost dying every 100 feet. We finally return our bikes and are ready for dinner. We settle on Mexican. We all miss Mexican food, so it seems fitting. We find a decent joint and keep the conversation going. The food was good and I was stuffed.

After going back to the hostel and relaxing for a bit they invite me out with them that night. They are going to try and find their Dutch friend they met in South America and go to a bar with him. While we are leaving they run into an Australian guy they met in Switzerland. He decides to join us. As we are walking HE runs into two American girls he met in Germany. They decide to join us too. Now we are a random party of 6. Awesome!

We fail to get in touch with the Dutch friend at first, so we end up at a small, local pub. We enjoy a few beers there and then finally get a hold of the Dutch friend. He is already pretty drunk, so his cousin acts as our guide to their bar. It is pretty far so we split a cab ride instead. We lose out Australian friend, but the other 5 of us make it there.

We enjoy a good time at the bar, drinking, which our generous new Dutch friend keeps buying for us (score). The bar closes at 1am though, so we decide to go to a club. Another cab ride back to the city center. We get into a club, which is packed and I mean that as literally as possible. There is no room to move. It was exactly like being in a mosh pit. We all lose each other really fast. After awhile I meet up with the Dutch and then Megan and Kelly, but we lost the other two girls, who we are pretty sure just left (they had a 5am train to catch).

We keep partying at this club till about 2:30am when the cops break it up. Wait, what? Yes, the cops. 20 of them. Not kidding. Our Dutch friend says he has heard of this, but never experienced it (it is rare). To leave, they pat you down. Now Amsterdam doesn't care about pot, but it cares A LOT about heavy drugs and cracks down extremely hard on them. Our friend points out that usually those raids are 4 or 5 cops. 20 cops probably means some sort of drug boss or kingpin is in the club with us and they got word of it. That makes it even better and more exciting. Takes 20 minutes to get out (single file line).

After we get out, we are still full of energy and our Dutch friend suggests going to his apartment and having a drink. We head there. Now this guy is 23, a pilot for the major Dutch airline and owns his own apartment in Amsterdam. And it is a sweet bachelors pad. We hang out, have a few more drinks and finally realize it is 5am and we need sleep. He gets a cab for us, makes sure the guy doesnt screw us on price and we head home. At 5:30am I finally crawl into my bed excited for some sleep.

Oh Amsterdam, what will tomorrow bring?