Amsterdam

October 12

We had our last "real" breakfast for a while and then headed off to the airport. Our flight got us in, in the early evening so we hopped on a bus to head towards town. The bus, we soon realized, didn't seem to be stopping where we though it would so we chose a random stop (kind of, I noticed the pancake house) and we got off. We came across this cute little pancake house and ordered Poffertjes, which was on our list of Dutch food to try. Poffertjes are like minitaure pancakes served with butter, powdered sugar, whipped cream, and we also got ours with strawberries. I could not believe how delicious this was. It was amazing! As we were walking towards our hostel we came across a little bakery where Jacquline and I got hot chocolate (remember this as you read on) because it was freezing there. Absolutely freezing. We got to our hostel around 10 and decided to call it a night.

October 13

Caitlin had a 2pm flight this day so we tried to fit in as much as we could before she left. We paid for museum tickets for the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum at our hostel so we didn't have to wait in line (lies). We went to the Rijk first, and once we got there we discovered that those under the age of 19 get in free so we were slightly (super) bitter that the lady in the hostel didn't tell us and made us pay 17,50 Euro for those tickets. The museum is not worth that. Then we headed to the Van Gogh Museum, where we had to wait in a line (in the freezing cold) to get our tickets. We still had to wait. Dumb. This museum was much better than the Rijk, much better. Caitlin left from the Van Gogh Museum so it was just Jacqueline and myself for the rest of the day. We split french fries, which were on the list, as we walked to Anne Frank's house, to stand in the freezing cold. We stood in line for a little over half and hour, not bad, right? Well, as we got towards the very front of the line there was a sign telling us we couldn't bring large backpacks into the house. So, we ended up waiting in line and not even getting to go inside. We'll be back though, definitely

Once that was over we headed to McDonald's, the once place in all of Europe that for sure has free wifi, to wait for our other friends to get done with their adventures. We told them, Brittany, Lia, and her roommates, to meet us outside of their hostel at 7. We couldn't go inside and wait because we weren't staying there. So, we waited, and waited, and waited. We waited until 7:45 to go back to McDonald's, where there was warmth and wifi. They finally contacted us around 8:15 and it ended with  very annoyed Becky and Jacqueline. We all headed our separate ways after we met up. Jacqueline, Brittany, and I went to dinner and then to the bus station to catch our 11:30pm bus, while the other girls went to experiment.

The bus was a night bus to Berlin that would get us there around 9am the next morning. This saved us on a days worth of travel and a stay at a hostel. The bus wasn't packed so I slept band bus style and actually got quite a lot of sleep, not very good sleep, but a lot. The bus stopped at the border between the Netherlands and Germany and Boarder Patrol got on around 3am to check our passports. That was an interesting experience.