AMSTERDAM!!!

Okay, so, here we go. Amsterdam.

First of all, ohmygosh, I fell in love with this city. It is probably one of the most beautiful, quirky, unique, interesting places I have ever been to. The buildings are all gorgeous and old and have so much character (the new part of the city having being built in the 16th century), the canals are beautiful and old and everywhere, there are so many things to do and things to see, everyone around is speaking a different language, not to mention the Dutch people who are wacky and goofy and so so friendly and all speak English like they are native Americans.

The very first thing we did, of course, was a bike tour, and, of course, the first thing I did was crash into another biker, but she was okay and I was okay and I didn't hurt anyone the whole trip and everything was good. It was wonderful, because we literally spent the entire weekend biking around (and wow, I mean, everyone knows Amsterdam has more bikes than people, but really the amount of bikes is unbelievable).

We went to the Anne Frank House, which was cool, because, you know, Anne Frank House and all, and having not actually read Anne Frank's diary I'm going to be honest and say I was literally expecting that she lived in an actual attic, but really it was pretty decently sized, like a tiny house, and I was surprised. Unfortunately you can walk through the rooms but they aren't actually furnished like they were, which was a bit of a bummer. Nevertheless, it was really interesting.

However, the Musuem that Julia and I went to that I was incredibly and completely in awe of was a little place called "Our Lord in the Attic" (which is the greatest name for a church, ever. period) which was a town house owned by I believe a dutch merchant in the 1600s, and when the Netherlands went all reformation crazy and banned public services for Catholics, the top two stories were transformed into a secret church hidden in the attic. Now, that's badass. Not only that, but the church was in service until 1887, and in 1888 it became a Museum. Yeah, that's right, this place is so cool that even people 115 years ago realized it's awesomeness.

(By the way, what is it with Amsterdam and hidden buildings? I see a trend here...)

Other things we did included a lot of shopping, a lot of just walking/bike riding around the city, oh! and an open boat tour of the canals, which was incredible. We went to chinatown, which was cool and crowded and touristy and I was not a dumbo so I did not get my phone stolen by a sleazy guy who tried to steal it (and so, sorry, I don't have any good pictures of china town because I was too scared of thieves) and twice we went to the redlight district in daytime which was definitely something to experience. The first time was especially great because we just kinda wandered into that neighborhood, not on purpose, and I was looking down at something on the ground, and Julia goes "Grace, look up" and suddenly I am face to face with a very very scantily clad girl staring at me from behind a window and woah that was a surprise for me.

On Saturday Julia and I went to a ginormous and awesome farmer's market, which spanned a whole square plus three city blocks and sold all kinds of glorious stuff. I bought a bracelet and a purse and Julia bought a robot necklace and we also got some goat cheese and fancy sausages and fresh squeeze orange juice and ohmygosh it was great.

The last night we were there, Julia's little sister, Daria, took the two of us out for the whole Amsterdam night experience and it was definitely surprising how the city was just as crowded at 2am as at 2pm, and everyone was STILL riding their bicycles around. We went back to the redlight district for a little bit, and lemme tell you, it was a bajillion times scummier at night and there were large groups of sleazy foreign men everywhere and whew we did not stay there for long, because gross.

The final day of our vacation, I got what the best surprise ever, because before we drove home, Alex took us to the coast, and I was reunited with the ocean and it was beautiful and I ran around barefoot for about an hour and it was lovely. And now I have been to the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the North Sea. :)

So, that was my vacation!
I have many many many pictures and I will post as much of them as I can, but I think I am going to make a separate picture post or this will be incredibly long.

To switch topics, today I went to the community college in my town and took a German placement test, and I actually did pretty decent on it, surprising everybody, especially myself. And Monday I will began a 16 hr a week intensive German class and I'm really really excited about this, I literally am sitting here squealing with glee. I am so ready to be good at German. Haha

Anddd, tomorrow I am not going to school (not that I'm missing much, friday I only have three hours anyway) because I am going with my counselor and a bunch of other exchange students to an amusement park and everything about that is really great and yay hooray! except it's supposed to be about 40 degrees F and raining and ohmgosh the weather here is going to kill me I swear and it's not even winter yet.

And with that happy thought I will end this post.