AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

August 10th- August 12th 2019

Currently, it is 1.51 am… or 10.51 am, depending which country you are going off. I truly forgot how much I dislike airplanes. I can absolutely never sleep, people are kinda annoying and I never seem to keep busy long enough to forget about how bad my arms and legs are aching from being cramped in a small space. as i’m writing this on the plane i will probably go back later and realize i am being dramatic, but, at this current moment, my legs are asleep, i’m hot, bored and tired.

Anyways, last night my friend Rylee spent the night and we stayed up until past 4.45 am talking and then woke up again at 7 a few hours later to go on a hike/ swim w our friends. Everyone met at our house at 8 and we all drove in two cars up to the green river gorge where we took a freezing swim. Before that we stopped for coffee and breakfast and Elle even brought her hamster inside to visit us which probably wasn’t allowed, but, to be fair the sign only said “no dogs”. It didn’t say anything Chinese rats. Once we got there we all checked out the waterfalls then walked a bit further past those.  A few of us went cliff jumping, others went off a rope swing and we all struggled against the current pulling us under and away from where we were supposed to be haha. 

After that, my grandpa picked up my mom and I and we drove to the airport. After we said our goodbyes we got some snacks and boarded the plane. A little over 10hrs later we arrived in Amsterdam at about 2pm our time, 5 am Seattle time. We met up with my grandma who will be traveling with us until I board the boat and we went to our hotel room to unpack. As soon as we got there I fell asleep until about dinner time. when I woke up we went to a little Italian restaurant on the street a few canals down. The people here are so friendly, but when you walk, no one moves! In America, if someone is walking at you, both people generally move. Here, not so much, you’ll get knocked over if you don’t get out of the way. And if you’re not getting run into by people walking, you’ll probably get run over by a train or a bike… 

There are so many cute shops, restaurants and bakeries here. for breakfast we sat with our coffee and pastries and people watched. There were definitely some interesting people. A yelling angry pregnant woman, a drunk guy with a pink mohawk, a group of matching tourists, and plenty of normal people who seemed to be from the area. As it got later in the day we went to explore the streets a little more. There are so many adorable shops and boutiques, art stores, and flower shops. We got some beautiful hand drawn and painted depictions of Amsterdam in one of the little shops. They also have a shop full of “American foods” rice crispies, cereal, hostess, salad dressing and candies, it is a very interesting store. Oh, and, everywhere here smells like weed… there are so many pot shops, pot decorated clothes and bakes goods everywhere lol, it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. not only does it smell like pot everywhere, but everyone is always smoking. aside from clothing stores no matter where you go you will see or smell cigarettes. i would not be suprised if i came back in 10 months and had lung cancer from second hand smoke lol

We are all still definitely jet lagged. As Grammie puts it, mom and her have “teenage brain”… they’re running on few hours of sleep and are a bit dopey and disoriented… gee thanks. as we adapt to the time difference we’re still feeling a bit zombieish, but there are plenty of coffee shops to counteract that- there’s even a Starbucks! Which I have been banned from going to since “we’re in Europe and there is better coffee to drink than Starbucks”

I’m missing my friends and family a lot right now, but i’m also loving exploring this beautiful town.

and, yes, that is a “happy feelings 420 cruise“ we didn’t realize that as we took the picture haha