Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Amsterdam was a blast! I had a very good time but I did not care for my hostile very much or the heavy tourism there. It was so crowded and almost impossible to go to any museums because of the long lines. Other than that, Holland was great!

I was able to see the main attractions I wanted to go to such as the Anne Frank house, the Van Gogh Museum and the Hemp Museum. I got really excited in the Hemp museum because they had a video playing in the background discussing the culture of Hemp and it referenced Humboldt County and the town I live in, Arcata. It was so cool to see video footage of my home town because I was starting to get home sick by this point. I saw the beautiful beaches I love to go to, the foot bridge I’ve walked on countless times, and many other places. It was really cool!

The coffee shops in Amsterdam were great and were everywhere! I could not believe how many there were in such a little city. I do not remember the exact number but there are around 330 coffee shops there.

I took a tour through the city on my first day, seeing most the site attractions and received a great history and culture lesson of the Dutch in Holland. On the second day I took another tour of the Red Light District and received another history and culture lesson of prostitution in Holland. It was very fascinating. We also walked through the district and witnessed the prostitutes in the windows and even saw some guys either coming out or going into the rooms.

Amsterdam was very interesting and once again, I would have loved to stay there longer but I was sick of the Dutch ripping the tourists off. Everything was so expensive. If fact, I got really pissed a couple of times because of the prices I had to pay. Can you believe it cost 1 Euro to go to the bathroom in the train station? Who in their right mind would pay to go to the bathroom? Europe is all about taking advantage of tourist, especially Holland. I just do not agree with those practices.

None the less, I had a really great time and met some really cool people. Over all I spent 3 days in Holland and now my next stop will be Paris.