Amsterdam and windmills!

I had always wanted to visit Amsterdam, so when the opportunity came up to go with my university for only 150 euros, I signed up as soon as I could! The day finally came, and of course, it was another 13hr bus ride overnight. We learned when we got on the bus that in fact the heating was broken, which was disastrous for the people who weren't prepared! But luckily I was prepared, and had brought along a sleeping bag for the sole purpose of the bus rides, as I was freezing on the way back from Rome last time!
Here is us, at the beginning of our bus ride. I dread to think what I looked like at the end!

After a long trip in the freezing cold bus, we finally arrived, at the Ibis budget hotel by the airport. I'm not sure why we were put by the airport, we ended up spending more on transport than anything else that weekend!

So we dropped off our stuff and had some breakfast, then went out to explore Amsterdam. It was cold and raining, but that didn't stop us! 

I saw this on the way, which was exciting, apparently the real 'Zealand' is at the bottom of Holland, and actually means 'Sea land' in Dutch, because it is on the coast. Maybe that's why NZ is called new sea land? maybe..

First on my list was the Anne Frank house, as I was really interested to see something which I had heard so much about. It was right in the heart of the city centre, although I don’t know what it would have looked like 70 or so years ago. They kept the original house, and made a museum around it.

This is the converted bookshelf which the hidden part of the house was behind, its amazing to actually go through it and see the little house behind which over 10 people didn't come out of for two years!

After the museum we went to find some lunch, but it was surprisingly hard to find anywhere typically ‘Dutch’ to eat amongst all of the takeaway places. We even found this delicious looking…vending machine? Yuck!

After a bit of searching, we found a café/restaurant that had an interesting looking menu, I got the Dutch meatballs, which were really nice! Apparently traditional Dutch food has a lot of mashed potatoes mixed with meat and other things, and that was exactly what was in my meatballs. I enjoyed them a lot.

As we sat and ate, we got out our tourist maps and looked up what to visit next. A huge sign for a 'Sex Museum' was indicated on the map not too far from where we were, so we decided to go and have a look around. 

Interesting is definitely the word for it, there is nothing censored in there! You can imagine what this automated old man is about to pop out and do...

After that experience, we went back to the hotel for dinner, and on the way we saw this beautifully lit up shopping mall. Europe tends to do a lot of lighting up things for Christmas, as you will see in my next blog post on the Festival of Lights in Lyon!

After dinner, we decided to see what Amsterdam is like at night. Another interesting experience. The reason for the bad quality is that I don't think we were meant to be taking any pictures in this area, so I had to be subtle!

The next day, we found this sign, it is somewhat of a tourist icon in Amsterdam so we definitely had to get our photos taken with it! I loved this sign!

After checking out the inner city some more it was already dark, due to the short hours of light that this part of Europe has in winter, but this allowed for some lovely twilight photos by one of the many canals that are running through the city centre.

Like Strasbourg, Amsterdam had an inner city long boat that goes round the canals for tourists. We had planned to go on it but unfortunately never got around to it.

And on our way back home, yet another example of how nicely the streets are decorated at night around Christmas time!

The next day was an amazing day of seeing real Holland from a local's perspective, as I took the train from Amsterdam to Utrecht, another city in Holland, to meet my Dutch friend who I lived with for the first half of the year. He drove from his home town to the city to come and pick me up, and we went back to his parents house where he is living, in the middle of a tiny Dutch town where he has spent all of his life. 

Luckily for me, it is also a town famous for having the largest concentration of windmills nearby, which was great news for me, as I had really wanted to see this quintessential aspect of Holland while I was here, and allowed me to see the country beyond just Amsterdam.

He had planned a bike ride around the town and then through the middle of the windmill area, which was a really good way to see them all!

They were beautiful, and he told me that half of them had been converted to houses, he actually knew someone living in one of the houses! These ones are definitely the converted ones.

As we biked back towards the town, stopping only at a little bakery for a traditional Dutch apple pastry, we saw the windmills in the distance dotting the landscape.

The whole area was beautiful, and made me really want to come back and spend a decent amount of time in this quiet place, but unfortunately, I had to go back to catch my 15hour bus ride back (it took a lot longer on the way back..)

Amazingly, my friend drove me all the way back to Amsterdam, which was so nice of him as it ended up being over 3hrs of driving for him! (after me directing him wrong a couple of times)

I really liked Holland, and I'm glad that I got to see another side of it than just the highly touristical Amsterdam, I will definitely be coming back to visit!