Amsterdam

Just as many boats as there are cars!

Me and the Queen?!

Queen's Day! Most of the canals looked like this with party boats and Heineken flowing. Oh, and the streets were our garbage can. Perfect.

Beautiful evening in Amsterdam

Ahh finally out of Ireland! We landed in Amsterdam Tuesday evening and made our way to the city central. The train system took us a while to figure out, but of course we managed. Johnny hooked it up with the hotel and we stayed at the Hotel Pulitzer which was super nice. Rooms were a bit small, but I think that's a trend in Europe, no matter! When we were checking in the hotel staff asked us if we were there for Queen's Day. Queen's Day? What's that!? We had no idea we arrived for the largest city party ever! The Dutch love their Queen and every April 30th they celebrate the her. The party starts the night before, which is of course when we arrived! During Queen's night the bars stay open all night and throughout the following day! Crazy!
We first met up with a couple of Johnny's friends and had some sushi with them. It was delicious. Then we were off to enjoy the night! Heineken was only 2 EUR! The cheapest beer I've found in Europe so far! Eventually I had to take pictures of street signs just to remember where hell we were! There are so many canals in Amsterdam and after a while they all look the same!

I fell asleep hearing people partying. I woke the next day from hearing people partying! Jeez. On Queen's Day, there is also an open "free market" where basically anyone can sell anything they want. Most was junk, but I took a few pics of it. Again, we got more cheap Heineken and enjoyed the day! Ate a lot of random stuff I couldn't pronounce... but I got plenty pictures of everything I ate! We came back for a power nap, but I was so beat from walking around the city all day that Edwin and Johnny nearly had to pull me out the door to enjoy the night. We hit up the Red Light district which was quite interesting to say the least. I snagged a few pics during the day when everyone was partying and lots of tourists were doing the same, but at night I didn't even want to try.

We came back and I crashed fast! Woke up, ate at a cafe (not a coffeeshop, big difference!), then we headed out to London! It sorta sucked that we couldn't do all the touristy stuff in Amsterdam since everything was closed for Queen's Day, but then again, I'll never experience a city party like that ever again. Well, until I return next April 30th!