Altering stomachs and noses on our last day in AMSTERDAM

Katie and I woke up at 10:30 after a pretty satisfying night of sleep. Well, not completely satisfying, but relatively speaking, yes. We had made plans to go out for breakfast because in the center of town for the past couple days we kept passing this one amazing Dutch bakery/café/restaurant. We got ready and walked right over there. Our plans for the day were pretty simple: eat all of the food that we’ve been wanting to taste from the little snack stands all over town, then take Katie to get her nose pierced (!!!). Katie has been planning on getting her nose pierced while abroad, but then decided to save it for Amsterdam because, well, what better place to do it than Amsterdam? We walked to the bakery on a clear, yet colder morning. We arrived and grabbed a seat in what looked much like a neighborhood bakery/restaurant. It was filled with natives. The décor was adorable: very open and airy with lamps hanging made of old pots. When we walked in to our left was the mixing table and oven where a woman was making pastries and taking a fresh-baked carrot cake out of the oven. To our right was the register and pastry counter with countless cakes and goodies to choose from. We grabbed the menu that was set on our table and became immediately frustrated…it was all in Dutch! We tried our best—we could kind of gather what it was saying since there are some words that look like English words, but it was pretty much a lost cause. We sat there struggling for what seemed like ages until we decided to just give in and ask if they had an English menu. Luckily, they did. Since it was before noon we could only choose from some light breakfast options, most of which involved something sweet and tasty. We both decided to get a small, cheap breakfast there and then go grab a snack afterwards. We both ordered a fresh-baked scone, Katie got plain and I got chocolate chip. They came pretty quickly with 2 different kinds of home-made marmalades: one pear and one lemon. The lemon was extremely thick. Katie then requested some strawberry marmalade which came promptly and turned out to be dense preserves (delish!). We ate our absolutely delicious scones with all of the flavors of marmalade which came in huuuuge jars. Our favorite ended up being the lemon: it was as thick as pie filling, so by putting it on our scones they tasted like eating chocolate lemon tart. A-MA-ZING. I seriously crave that chocolate scone with the lemon marmalade daily. I am not kidding you, words cannot even describe. With our scones we got coffee because supposedly Holland is known for its coffee. Let me tell ya, Dutch coffee tastes no different from any other coffee I’ve had. I don’t know, I’m not a huge coffee drinker so I’m not one to judge. After the absolutely delicious breakfast we decided that what we wanted for a snack was a big-ass slice of veggie pizza. At all of the little snack bars on the streets they have these huge pizzas with any vegetable or meat you could want and tons of cheese. I’m not a big pizza person, but these always caught my eye. The Dutch cheese is also quite famous, and the Dutch LOVE to melt cheese on everything. So pizza is huge, and frankfurters are big, too, but with lots and lots of cheese melted on it. They also sell lots of bagels and rolls with veggies and cheese melted on them. Ohhh I love the Dutch. There is a huge row of quality pizza bars near the Grasshopper which was in the other direction, so we decided to go to a coffeehouse, get pizza, and then get Katie’s nose pierced. However, we got sidetracked and decided to take an impromptu journey to this amazing thrift shop that we found when walking around the night before. It took us awhile, but we found it (surprisingly). This thrift store is amazing: it’s mostly clothes from the 80’s which is oh so great. I loved everything there, but unfortunately it was out of the budget. Everything cost 20-40 euro which was pretty disappointing. Disillusioned, we left. It was getting cloudy and windy and cold which was saddening. Next to the store was this huge outdoor market with a bunch of venders selling vintage clothes (vintage is big in Holland, I guess), souvenirs, accessories, etc. We walked around looking at the stuff which was all unfortunately kind of pricey, so we started walking towards our hostel. On the way we stopped at a couple more thrift stores…they’re everywhere (another reason I love Amsterdam)! We then walked back toward the hostel where we stopped by the Bulldog bar a block away and got some more dessert. They had chocolate muffins which were quite yummy. Katie was getting quite nervous, she kept having me reassure her that the nose piercing doesn’t hurt. While waiting for the cakes to kick in, we headed over to the Grasshopper area to get a big-ass slice of pizza. It was so cold out! We checked out all of our options at the many pizza joints and finally settled on the place that put the most veggies on their pizza. We ordered, they heated up the slices, and we sat and ate them with a fork and knife. The pizza good, yet a bit disappointing. There was no sauce on it! But it was really bready and full of cheese and innumerable veggies so no complaints. We were stuffed! We then decided that we should head to the piercing place. The place we wanted to go to was large and clean and located in the Chinatown area. It took us some time to find it, and the cold was not helping the journey. Plus, Katie’s nerves were flying and she was pretty quiet and pensive. We got there to see that it was closed although according to the sign on the door it was open. So weird! We decided to just find a different place because, well, it’s Amsterdam so there must be piercing places all over. We walked for awhile in the cold to no avail. Katie didn’t seem too distraught, she seemed relieved about the piercing place being closed because she was just so nervous and getting ready to back out. I, however, was a bit more determined. I walked into a café and asked somebody about a piercing parlor and they pointed us down a side street. On the way we passed a little stand advertising haring sandwiches. Like I’ve said, haring is one of the most distinctive foods of Dutch cuisine and it’s served raw. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity and decided to give it a go. Both of us weren’t that hungry so we split one. It came on a hot dog bun with onions and pickles (pickles are also a very major food in Holland). It was DELICIOUS! Oh man, I love Dutch food. I love raw fish sandwiches (lox, e.g.) so this was quite tasty in my book. I loved every second of that half a sandwich, and I also crave that still to this day. I’m not kidding. I had really bad onion breath afterwards, though. We soon found the tattoo/piercing parlor and walked into the dark, dingy place with weird images on the wall. We walked in to see a woman, right out in the open, being tattooed as her husband and young daughter watched. We were not feeling to hot about this place so we left. Katie suggested that we give up the search. She said that it wasn’t a big deal and she’s okay with not getting her nose pierced. I know that it was her nerves talking, but I wasn’t going to force her. So we walked back to the hostel. Our legs were tired from walking and we were cold. We pretty much collapsed in chairs at a booth in the bar. Since we weren’t getting her nose pierced we had nothing to do. So we just sat in silence for awhile. I was quiet because I was just trying to think of what else we could do with our day, but Katie's silence was caused by something else: suddenly, after sitting for awhile she looked at me and said, “I gotta do it.” She had been thinking about her nose piercing! I had no idea, haha. She suddenly built up the bravery and was determined. She stood up and marched over to the hostel front desk…I followed full of pride for miss Katie. She asked the girl behind the counter if there was a piercing place nearby. The girl smiled and said “Are you kidding?”. Haha, I love Amsterdam. She told Katie that she had gotten her last piercing at this one really nice place close by and she gave us directions. The funny thing is that she said that she had gotten her last piercing there…the thing is, she had no facial nor ear piercings. That gave me cause to wonder. Anyways, we headed straight for the piercing parlor which we found right away. When we were lost in the cold earlier Katie told me that they were omens that she wasn’t meant to get her nose pierced. The fact that we found the place right away at this point, however, was now a sign that it was meant to be. Katie acknowledged this fact. We walked into the white, clean parlor and a young, short guy with a Mohawk immediately approached us and asked if he could help us. Katie told him exactly what she wanted and he gave price and showed the earring that she would get. He was so unbelievably nice and helpful! They only have one choice of earring for the initial piercing—it’s a plain titanium little ball so because that allows the piercing to heal faster and better. I was liking how this guy worked. Katie, without hesitation, said yes, let’s do it. So the guys casually guided us into the white, medical-looking room. It was so clean. The guy then pulled out all of the instruments which were clean and packaged perfectly. He approached the whole thing like it was no big deal, making conversation as if he wasn’t about to poke a hole in Katie’s nostril. This definitely helped calm Katie’s flying nerves a bit because he wasn’t making a big deal out of it at all. He put a mark on Katie’s nose to give a suggestion of where to pierce it. He put the dot in the perfect spot! Katie asked my opinion and I told her that it was absolutely perfect. So he clamped her nose and Katie started to shake like I’ve never seen anybody shake before. Her head was trembling and I was worried that he wouldn’t be able to pierced her nose! It was obvious that this guy was skilled because despite all of her shaking he pierced her right on target. It happened so fast and was no big deal at all. I was a bit jealous because when I got my nose pierced it was a longer process and was a bigger deal (I had to lie down, and they corked the needle before putting the earring in…there was no cork involved in Katie’s piercing). He put the earring in and she was good to go. The whole thing lasted 10 minutes at the most. Katie couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t even sore, nor was she bleeding. It was awesome! And it looked amazing. She was a bit hesitant about it at first because after getting a facial piercing it’s always a bit shocking. When I got my nose pierced I had a mini freak out thinking the earring was too big or it didn’t look good on my face. Katie had the same reaction but I reassured her that it looked amazing. I had always promoted the nose piercing for her because she has the perfect nose and face for it. Katie then paid the 45 euro (for the piercing AND the earring! So cheap!), and we were off. Katie was so giddy—she had the post-piercing euphoria. She was so happy! I was so proud of her, too. She was so brave and awesome. I knew that she’d regret not doing it, and did it she did. Good for her! And damn it looks good! Afterwards we decided to celebrate with some more Dutch food. Another major Dutch food is the fresh cut French fries served with a fork and any sauce you could ask for on top. There’s a huge French fry joint near Central Station so we walked over there. It suddenly began to rain which just made the coldness that much less fun. The irony is that we had both packed umbrellas since the weather report said that it was supposed to rain the entire time we were there, but since it hadn’t rained yet, we assumed that we wouldn’t need the umbrellas. But lo and behold. We waited in the long line for fries (this place must be good since so many people wanted fries) until we ordered: we both got smalls, mine with cheese and Katie’s with barbecue sauce. They came wrapped in paper with a little wooden fork. We then found an awning under which we stood and ate. The fries were soooooooo good! So thick and potatoey but not overwhelmingly greasy. The cheese on top was delicious and just augmented the amazing flavor of the fries. It’s weird, I’m not a big French fry person, but I was in love with these. Honestly, Dutch food is AWESOME. Katie and I ate our fries intently and in silence. We were truly having an experience. For a small, we got a lot of food and we were stuffed. The fries were actually supposed to be our “appetizer” before dinner. For dinner we had plans to go to one of the little hole-in-the-wall Middle Eastern restaurants to satiate our falafel craving. There are a lot of falafel and kebab places in Amsterdam, and everyday they were taunting me. However, we never ended up at one, so we had to make concrete plans to eat at one our last day. We also wanted to try the famous French fries, so we had to compromise and do the whole appetizer deal. Well, the fries filled us up, so we had to do something to let the food settle before the falafel. Only in Amsterdam would I plan my day around eating! I really wanted to buy some silly souvenirs so we went to a bunch of souvenir shops. Luckily the rain had let up. I ended up buying a simple t-shirt that read “Amsterdam” in big bold letters, and two awesome shot glasses—one with a picture of the canals and another with the Amsterdam shield with lions on it. Soon our food had settled enough so we went to a falafel kebab place near our hostel that had a huge sign that said “The Best Middle Eastern Food in Amsterdam”…we figured that that’d be the perfect place. We both ordered falafel pitas that came with plenty of veggies and garlic sauce. Wow, I was smelling great that day, I tell ya. The falafel was delicious and made me so happy. I love me my falafel. After that we were officially stuffed. We still had room, however, for dessert. So we headed back to the Bulldog bar a block away from our hostel (this was now our favorite café/bar!) for milkshakes. The bartender there that night was was super nice, of course…I love that place! He even let us mix milkshake flavors—we both got chocolate banana. The shakes were SO good! We soon walked back to the hostel so that we could get our things packed up and ready. We had a 7:15am flight the next morning, and since we were going to take the 5am train to the airport (screw the expensive cabs!) we would have to wake up a little before 4am the next morning. Ugh. Packing up really didn’t take that long since we never really unpacked. We then decided to head downstairs to the bar to hang out a little bit more before calling it a night. Once we headed downstairs we saw Forrest Gump playing on the big screen. Unfortunately there was no room on the couch. Actually, most of the time the couch was pretty full, typically with sketchy people (e.g. the guy who slept above Katie) sitting around in silence and smoking. That was the only disappointment of Amsterdam: I had expected to encounter a lot of friendly, happy, peaceful hippie types at my hostel who we could befriend, but no. People in our hostel were actually pretty sketchy and weird. So we sat at a table and hung out for a bit just the two of us, soaking in our last hours in Amsterdam. We were in bed around 10:30 although it took us some time to fall asleep, of course. I had had an amazing time in Amsterdam. I swear, each trip I take tops the previous. I love Europe…I’m really starting to see how every country here is so unique and distinct. I loooooove loooooooove looooooooooooooooooove Amsterdam. I can’t believe I went to Holland! What I life I live out here! Studying abroad is one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made…I just can’t believe that I have the opportunity to just pack up and go to Holland, or Paris, (or Portugal, or whatever for the weekend. I am so in love with life, I must say. I am now in love with Amsterdam. I love the world!