Amsterdam

It hasn't been my intention to make this a "only when I feel like it" blog, but time is a limited resource around here, apparently. So I'm sorry! On with pictures and stuff.

Last weekend, I made the train/tram/bus/plane/taxi trek to Amsterdam with my roommates Garrett and Tim. This was my first trip to Europe proper outside of Italy (Britain doesn't count, it's an island). Getting there involved a bus to Termini train station in Rome, another bus from there to Ciampino airport, a RyanAir flight to Eindhoven in the Netherlands, another bus to the train station there, a one-hour train ride to Amsterdam, and a few hours of confused walking around and giving up to take a taxi to our hostel, which sent us to another hostel since they had already booked our rooms. End result: we were worn out but upgraded to a place to stay right in the center of the city, about a two-minute walk from the main train station.

Amsterdam is a giant tourist trap, this I am now sure of. We were also located right next to the more touristy parts, so that wasn't so good. There was some sort of carnival/dance scene going on the night we arrived (Saturday), but we were too tired from our escapades to find it.

Canals everywhere here. That big red building in the background is the train station.

This is what most of the center of the city looks like.

Sunday we had planned to hit some museums and go on a bike ride in the countryside, but the weather chose not to cooperate with us that day. Instead we walked through the rain, and did get to a couple of the major museums. Those being the Rijksmuseum, home of The Night Watch by Rembrandt and the Vincent Van Gogh museum. The Rijks was interesting but kind of small, whereas Van Gogh had a large collection of Vincent's work, which I thought was impressive. The rain continued on through the night, and there wasn't much going on for a Sunday Night, despite it being Amsterdam, vice capital of Europe.

One of the busier roads. The trams go a decent ways but we didn't use them.

Monday morning was set aside for buying souvenirs and getting some photos, so all these you're seeing on this page were solely from this day. It was fairly chill that morning, somewhere in the 50s Fahrenheit. Thank god for fleece.

This train took us back to Eindhoven. Pretty sweet.