Journeys to the happiest place on earth: AMSTERDAM

The night before leaving I set 3 separate alarms due to my nervousness surrounding waking up following my Paris incident. Luckily, my first alarm functioned and woke me up on time at 5:45am. I got ready, packed some weird bocadillos (there isn’t much lunchmeat so I improvised: one pate and one cheese and tomato sauce), did my last minute packing, and was out the door by twenty to six. I walked in the early morning dark to Plaza de Cuba where I encountered many drunk Spaniards still out for the night (I told you they stay out late here). Katie and I had made plans to meet at the Plaza de Cuba at 7:10 and I got there about 10 min early which allowed me to have a really sketchy interaction with some extra sketchy drunk dude (“Cual es la hora?” what time is it “Siete y diez” seven ten “Gracias…hyooou…aaarrrre…verrrrrry………GUAPA” you are very pretty “Ehhh, gracias…” ehhhh thanks “OMIGAAAD OMIGAAD OMIGAAAAAAD”). OK, so the Spanish guys have this way of making fun of Americans: they always yell in an overly obnoxious American accent “OmigAHd!” with a long “AHHH” sound. It’s obnoxious and annoying. That drunk dude was yelling it as he walked away. Loser. Ugh. Katie arrived a little before 7:15 and we decided to cab it to Plaza de Armas (only 4 euro). We were way too excited to be tired! We got there and waited until our 8am bus showed up. At the bus station we ran into Melissa and her (and Katie’s) 2 roommates from another study abroad program—Jen and Emily. They were taking an 8:15am bus to a beach town for the day. We hung out until about a quarter to 8 when Katie and I went downstairs and boarded the Socibus to Madrid. It was a full bus, but it was a nice bus. We left on time for the 6 hour ride to Madrid. It was so nice; we watched the sun come up on a beautiful, warm spring day in Spain. We passed many open fields and farming areas that were glowing green, filled with horses and sheep. We also made a couple stops in some cute little Spanish towns which was fun to see. We also passed huuuuuge beautiful green and brown and red rock formations and innumerable vast fields of olive trees (they’re everywhere!). On the train they played a movie: The Good Girl dubbed in Spanish. Maybe it’s me, but I believe that that movie is a bit inappropriate to show on a bus ride. I mean, it wasn’t even dubbed, and there is some graphic sexuality and violence in that movie. Whatever, it was kind of funny. I watched the whole thing. Then I slept for a good hour or so, and soon we were at our halfway point: some truck stop with a cafeteria where we could buy lunch, use the bathroom, and the driver could get gas. We were there for fifteen minutes, we boarded, Katie and I then ate our bocadillos we had packed ourselves and talked/looked out the window for the remaining 3 hour ride. It really wasn’t too bad. We got into Madrid around 2ish. It was so weird to be back! It felt familiar, so funny, who knew we’d be back in Madrid? We had hours to spare before our 9:15pm flight, so we decided to hang out in Madrid on this beautiful day. We decided to find a Metro stop to head into the center of town and figure out our day. On the way to finding a Metro (which was kind of challenging and confusing) we developed a sushi craving. Up on our left we spotted an Asian restaurant that had the first three letters “Su” so we assumed it was a miraculous sushi restaurant spotting right next to our bus stop and we went in. Turns out the “su” starts the word “Sur” and it was just a Thai and Chinese restaurant, but we ate there anyways. We were tired and sweating from so much traveling and lugging around our baggage in the strong, Spanish sun. Oh, by the way, it was so weird to be in Madrid in warm weather…it looked/felt like a completely different city! At the restaurant we ate some noodle dishes which were pretty good. We decided on where to spend our afternoon: in the Plaza Mayor, the major, famous plaza of Madrid. I had gone there on my hungover/exhausted/freezing walking tour when we took our Madrid trip in January, and I thought that it was great, but I was so overwhelmed by the cold that I couldn’t really enjoy it. Katie had never been there because she ditched the Madrid tour. So it was settled. We went down to the Metro which was a big issue with my large rolling luggage. We asked how to get to the Plaza Mayor and the woman at the counter gave us very concrete directions to Plaza Mayor. We took 2 Metro lines without a problem (except for my baggage getting through the turnstile and up and down stairs) and ended up at the Sol stop which was right in the heart of the city: the Plaza del Sol. At first we followed our instincts towards the Plaza Mayor and ended up on this awesome shopping district street. It was crowded and kind of hard to pull my baggage through there, but nothing could get me down: it was a beeeeautiful day…I was falling in love with Madrid! We found a tourist info stand after wandering for about an hour and found out that we had missed a very crucial turn. We backtracked and took the 5-10 min walk to the Plaza Mayor. It was gorgeous there: the sun was shining, there were people just sitting around lounging at cafés or simply on the ground, sunbathing. There were countless street performers causing a ruckus, people standing on their porches overlooking the crowd below, music playing, it was glorious. Katie and I tried to find a cheaper café (kind of challenging there) to just have some coffee and chill out. We found one in a great corner of the Plaza (well, all of them are great corners) and had our simple café cortados (half the milk) and people watched while enjoying the beautiful weather for a good hour and a half. It was so great, so relaxed, so gorgeous, so wonderful. We both really fell in love with Madrid that afternoon—that’s what Spain is all about—those lazy Spanish afternoons spent in the Plaza. Perfect. At around 6:15 we decided that we should head out because we had a large Metro journey ahead of us. Rejuvenated by the coffees and the weather we walked the crowded streets towards the Metro. I noticed all of the beautiful, interesting architecture for the first time and also admired the blossoming, pink flowered trees lining the street. I love Madrid! We grabbed the Metro and had to take 3 Metro lines to the Barajas Airport, taking almost an hour. However, it all ran so smooth and with no problems (aside from the beating my bag took on the Metro stairs and turnstiles once again). It was great: everything had run so smoothly. We were so proud of ourselves for mastering the big city of Madrid and its public transportation. Let me tell you, one thing that study abroad has given me is a newfound comfort with public transportation. I’m becoming an expert, hehe. We got to the airport at around 7:15 with 2 whole hours to spare. We checked in pretty quickly and took our sweet time getting to our gate (think riding the moving sidewalk…standing still). On the way we stopped at random shops, such as Godiva and some perfume/cosmetics store. Our flight was then delayed a half an hour, so we didn’t board until 9. Then we didn’t take off until 9:40. Damn. Also, our airline was KLM (Royal Dutch), but there were electric problems so we took an airline called MartinAir. I think they’re out of Swiss Air because a lot of it looked familiar. The best part about the flight were the flight attendants: they wore the matching outfits with the little hats…think old school flight attendants, like Britney Spears in the “Toxic” video. Haha. The flight was 2 hours long, they served us dinner which surprised me: a cheese sandwich, yogurt, pretzels, sweet bread, a mini Twix bar, orange juice. Good times. Our plane got into the Amsterdam Schiphol airport a little before midnight. The place was pretty empty. I was surprised by the abundance of English. In fact, a lot of English, I found out, is spoken in Holland. I mean, they speak a lot of English, and they speak it really well. It seems as if they start learning English at school at a really early age because everyone is pretty much fluent in with a really good English accent. Crazy. We got our bags right away and decided that after all of our travels and the hour it’d be best to just take a cab to our hostel. The cab system at the airport is interesting: they have 3 cab companies working for the airport and you have to choose which one you want. There’s a list of companies and price above the taxi stand. We chose Schiphol cab service. We walked outside to where a man in a tux directed us to a shiny, black Mercedes (they were all Mercedes) with a driver also dressed in a tuxedo. The car was blasting super loud house music. Crazy. We got in and were off. This cab was like nothing I’d ever ridden—in fact, it was more like a company car or limo. This Mercedes was new, stick shift, black leather seats, GPS, aaaand a DVD player which the driver proceeded to watch (he was watching TV! They get TV in the taxis!) once he got tired of the blasting house music. It was crazy; he was driving so fast, listening to techno, and then watching TV. Safe? I think not. While driving in the cab and looking around at the high rises with English writing on them and whatnot I began to get the impression that The Netherlands must be a pretty wealthy nation. I had known that northern Europe tends to have more money than the rest, and now it was apparent. A half hour and 50euro cab ride later (ugghhh not happy about that one) we were in the Red Light District of Amsterdam, the happening, surprisingly clean, "naughty" area (yeah, Amsterdam is silly) on one of its many canals. We walked to our hostel which was playing loud music and had a very distinct smell. We walked up to the desk in the dim lighting to check in where a really cool Dutch guy was joking around with us, checking us in, rolling a cigarette, and telling us the few rules that there were. We paid our 187euro balance and headed up to our room. This hostel was so nice! It’s the Bulldog hostel; it has many floors, a bar downstairs, great location, great staff, etc. The hall of our room had artistic prints of celebrities such as Bono, Mariah Carey, Sean Penn, Madonna, and then photos of celebrities who had visited the Bulldog such as Chuck Norris and others. So funny. We walked into our room which was pitch black. It was so awkward because we were staying in a 12 person dorm room so many people were passed out at this point (it was 1am). We tried unpacking a bit by phone light and locking most of our stuff up in one of the lockers. It was a pretty good struggle to do this all quietly and in pitch black—it looked like this big dorm room thing was not going to be too fun. We both went to our assigned bunk beds, I had a top bunk and Katie had a separate lower bunk. Finally, we had settled, and despite our exhaustion we decided to explore the area around our hostel. We walked along the canal of our hostel checking out all of the infamous coffeehouses, bars and the numerous windows with half naked women dancing around, sitting, socializing, eating, etc. That was the weirdest part for me: legal prostitution. I mean, there were so many whorehouses! It sounds dirty, but since it’s a legal practice all of the windows and facilities were actually pretty tasteful looking. That’s what surprised me most about Amsterdam: with (kind of) legal drug use and prostitution I assumed that it’d be a pretty seedy place. I was quite wrong—like I’ve said, the fact that it’s all legal has ensured that everything remain clean, tidy, and looking sellable...everything´s monitored. Huh. Nevertheless, the prostitution thing definitely threw me off. I mean, you get caught in congestion on the street because men are just stopping in front of these women, studying them like a product to potentially buy, etc. It’s so strange. I’ve never seen such blatant objectification, I mean, these women are in store windows on display to be sold! That’s so weird. The worst part about it is that late at night a lot of stupid men who are messed up on some drug think that it’s okay to talk to regular women like prostitutes. Like, at one a night I got men looking me up in down saying that they want to “Fuck me up the ass” etc., etc. That really made me angry because I am not a prostitute! Just because you can talk to a woman in a window like that doesn’t make it okay to talk to any woman like that. Am I in a window??? No. I also don’t bring it upon myself…I mean, I’m walking around in my thick fleece, gloves, scarf, and hat. Who do they think I am?? Oh yeah, Amsterdam is also cold. It’s colder than Michigan, in the 40’s during the day and 30’s at night. Cold nights and men treating all women like prostitutes=not cool. Everything else about Amsterdam=very cool. We walked around the block once, walked into a couple bars and coffeehouses to see what they were all about. We thought about hanging out in one of them for a bit and then calling it a night but we didn’t even know where to start or how the whole Amsterdam bar/café system worked! It’s just so new and different and honestly a bit overwhelming. We were also quite cold and tired and just decided to save our energy for the next day. So we walked back to the Bulldog, got ready for bed as quietly as possible, and were in bed by 2. It took a good hour to fall asleep because sleeping in a random room with strangers whom I have never met is weird. And bunk beds are weird. Also, the dude sleeping in the bed next to mine had a major snoring problem. Should have invested in some earplugs. Also, some couple woke up at 5am to catch a flight or something and they had turned some lights on and were making noise. Needless to say, I got a second abbreviated night of sleep and was not pleased about it. Katie didn’t sleep well either. She told me also that in the middle of the night around 4am she could hear a couple having sex quietly in our room. Ugh. Damn hostels. But whatever, I was in Amsterdam!!!