A is for Amsterdam

No worries, we all made it to Amsterdam in one piece! Our last night in Paris was an interesting experience, but it’s too long of a story to write so you’ll have to ask us in person to get all the details! We started it off by following our temporary tour guide Crissa to her favorite restaurant, which was kind of a long bus ride away. We were all so excited to finally get to this restaurant we’d heard such good things about (and we were all starving!), but when we arrived, we found out from a sign on the door that the place was closed until August. So here we were, five girls who don’t speak any French in a very artsy, non-touristy part of Paris. Since we were too hungry to take the Metro back to town, we decided to eat at the first café we set our eyes on. It ended up being extremely delicious, and thankfully one of the workers spoke a little bit of English so we were able to order. After our super satisfying dinner, we got back on the Metro so we could go to the Eiffel Tower and stay to see it sparkle blue at 1:00 AM. We were really looking forward to a quiet night, just the four of us (Crissa had to leave early since she had to work the next morning, but we wish she could have stayed!), but the night did not turn out as planned. To sum it up, it involved the Eiffel Tower, wine (not too much actually), a rap battle, running down streets, and trying to find our way to our hotel via taxi very late at night! Like I said, we all were fine and made it to Amsterdam, so parents: DO NOT WORRY.

Our trip to Amsterdam started bright and early yesterday morning with a 3 ½ hour bus ride to Brussels, Belgium. We made a quick stop in Brussels so we could all taste the local cuisine and see some of the city. Of course, we headed straight for the waffle stands! We were honestly the first people from our group in line, that’s how excited we were about those waffles. I got a waffle with strawberries, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce; it was the best I’ve ever had. Dad: I hope you can re-create this delicacy the next time you cook breakfast! I think the group agreed that Belgium has the best waffles we’ve ever tasted! Kaci and Jackie were the only ones who were brave enough to eat mussels; Kaci liked them, Jackie didn’t. After we got our taste of Belgium, it was back on the bus for another 3 ½ hours. We were all jealous of Kaci’s ability to sleep so well…Jackie, Brittney and I did not sleep very well at all on that bus.

Our first night in Amsterdam we decided to be party poopers and skipped out on the “pub crawl” most of our tour group was participating in. Instead, we watched the Bachelorette episode we had missed and went to bed! This morning we went to see Anne Frank’s house. It was really sad to see the place she hid and hear her story; we can’t even imagine what she and her family had to go through, but after seeing the house, I think we all got a little bit better understanding of the whole ordeal. After the Anne Frank house we went to the Heineken beer factory. We got a 4-D experience where they “brew you” (basically take you through all the processes of brewing beer in a room that shakes and throws water on you), and then went on to make our own personalized beer bottles! We met some people from Dallas, Israel, and Spain on the tour so it was a fun experience! I’m really sorry if this is a choppy, hard to read blog entry. I’m really tired—not so shocking since we’re always tired--and was kind of distracted while writing this and I’m too lazy to proof-read (by the way, Brittney didn’t proof-read her blog entry where she said we were going to Morocco…we’re not going to Morocco, we’re going to Monaco). Anyways, we’re looking forward to going to the Holland country-side tomorrow and seeing the sights away from the city. Hope you’re enjoying our blog! We’ll keep ya posted!

-Erin and the rest.