Amsterdam Day 1

At 7am on Saturday, we put on our backpacks and hopped on our bikes. We were heading to Amsterdam! Okay, only joking. We weren't biking there. But we did ride our bikes to the train station to catch a train to Amsterdam.

 

On the train, leaving Braunschweig! We changed trains in Hannover. We quite enjoyed taking the train. It was nice that both Blake and I were able to relax.

A beer and a novel on the train! Traveling in style. P.S. I read Cancel the Wedding by Carolyn T. Dingman, and it was amazing! I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a summer read.

Amsterdam Centraal

We walked from the train station to our hotel.

But first we stopped for some fries. Yummy!

We arrived at the hotel around 1pm, our room wasn't quite ready yet. So we put our backpacks in the luggage room and waited for Ali and Brian. They were meeting us at our hotel so we could go exploring.

We ate a quick lunch and just wandered around a bit.
*It should be noted that during our quick lunch we also got attacked by pigeons!
I about knocked the entire table over when it pecked my foot!

Bike parking! There were bikes everywhere. And the bikers mean serious business in Amsterdam... They are NO joke. 

We went to the flower market. 

Cheese!

And we went to a cheese shop. They are everywhere! I am not sure which store is the best, but the store we picked was pretty delicious! I probably sampled 30 different kinds.

Lavender cheese! I thought it would be amazing...it was not. 

I settled for a hunk of red pesto cheese. It was mild and delicious! 

Just a hunk a cheese hanging in my purse! HAHA I thought this was the funniest thing. So like me to have cheese in my purse. And our ornament all wrapped nicely!

We went on just wandering the streets, stopping in shops, and catching up! It was lovely. After a few hours, Ali and Brian headed back to their hotel, as they were quite jet lagged. Blake and I went exploring some more!

A bridge!

We stopped for a snack and I was totally creeping in this boat! But look how close we were!

Delicious fruit beer!

Our hotel was across the canal from the Ballet!

We checked in around 7pm, and relaxed a bit before venturing out for some dinner. We were also pretty tired so we decided to go somewhere close that had some great pizza!

I pretty much inhaled the pizza, so I don't have a picture! We got some wine! Mmm.

We passed the famous Ice Bar... but Blake was not at ALL interested in going inside. So we passed! But at least we got to walk by.

A canal at night!

It was a beautiful evening!

After dinner we got a few more drinks and walked around Rembrandt Square! There was a festival going on and people were rowdy. We just explored and took it all in. And of course got some gelato. I had dark chocolate, it tasted like brownie batter and it was heaven! 

Join me tomorrow for days 2 and 3 of Amsterdam!