City Break in Amsterdam

My friend Mayra and I had our "spring break" right at the end of February, and so decided to take a quick city break to the beautiful city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Luckily, spring seems to have come super early this year, and we were treated to warm days and gorgeous weather the whole trip!

The first thing we did once we left the train station was take a picturesque walk along the Damtrak and grab lunch at a cute little cafe called Piqniq. Their menu was unique in that all of their portions were super small, and the idea was that you chose two or three little things, so that you could have a taste of each! We also had a delicious juice to go with. I had a salmon sandwich and a chicken curry quiche! It was delicious, and an excellent start to the trip.

We spent the afternoon walking through the narrow streets, almost getting run over by bicycles too many times to count. They seem to have the right of way in Amsterdam, rather than pedestrians. However, there were hardly any cars driving around the city compared to Paris! And the streets were much calmer. It was certainly a nice change.

In the early evening, we visited the Anne Frank House. It's something I have always wanted to do, and as soon as we decided to take a trip to Amsterdam, I bought tickets for the two of us online. If you can book ahead, you should. I've heard many stories from friends about having to wait in line for hours to get a ticket on the day.

The museum and the house itself was very thought-provoking. It is difficult to believe that in a city that is so calm, so beautiful and so friendly, atrocities such as what happened to Anne Frank and her family occurred just behind one of the beautiful houses along the canal. Once we left the house, we sat out on a bench outside to reflect, and we heard one of the church bells ringing, announcing the hour. We wondered if Anne Frank had heard the same bell when she was in hiding all those years ago. It's still difficult to comprehend that humanity allowed something such as the Holocaust to occur.  With the way things are going today, it makes me fearful that something similar could even happen again in the future.


Moving on to a lighter note...

Dinner was a huge delicious Indian meal. Then we then headed back to our hostel, where we had planned to chill for a bit and then go out for a drink in the city. However, we ended up spending the evening playing games with some of the other hostel visitors.

The next morning, after maybe 3 collective hours of sleep (thanks to some shockingly loud snoring), we walked over to the Bloemenmarkt, or the flower market, where we were regaled with hundreds of colorful, beautiful flowers.

Then, we walked to about three different cheese shops, and The Amsterdam Cheese Museum. We were able to try  at least 20 different types of cheese, mostly variations of Dutch Gouda, and also some goat's cheese.  My favorite was definitely the truffle flavored one, although there was also a lavender flavored goat's cheese that I found surprisingly delicious.

These flavors were all amazing. 

We had lunch up at the chic cafe Blue Amsterdam, and were treated to some delicious fresh lemonade and views looking down upon the city.

The rest of our time was spent wandering the streets and along the canal again, drinking coffee and soaking up some sunshine. Amsterdam was so peaceful, and felt like a break from the hustle and bustle of Paris. It's also a friendly place for any English speaker. I already can't wait to go back again!

Useful information

Train and bus tickets were fairly inexpensive, the difference between them being that the train was about a 3.5 hours journey, and the bus about 7 hours. We decided to pay a little more for less travel time.

We felt like two days was the perfect amount of time to see what we really wanted, but there's definitely more left to explore!

We stayed in The Flying Pig hostel right downtown. It was a short and easy walk from the train station, and the staff and the other hostel-stayers were incredibly nice and friendly. However, I probably had my worst night of sleep ever here. Next time, I'm definitely bringing ear plugs! It's great for the location though, and definitely a good hostel if you want to spend time meeting other travelers.