AmsterDAMN

Amsterdam is one of the cities that people always mention when talking about traveling around Europe, having now experienced the laid back everything good attitude that Amsterdam exudes I can see why.

The place where we chose to stay in Amsterdam was the flying pig which is pretty much the place to stay when you are in Amsterdam, it’s the one hostel I had heard about before even leaving Canada and the one we were told to stay more times than any other. You walk into the entrance of the Flying pig and are greeted by the reception which occupies half a semi circle counter, the other half the bar. To your left is a large pillowed area with a couple tables covered in ashtrays, beers and miscellaneous devices for inhaling what Amsterdam is famous for. There are numerous areas to sit and do nothing or watch a movie or what not; pretty much the most relaxing place you have been in, that also might be largely due to the smoke that fills the place. If you go to Amsterdam stay here, you will have an amazing time, the people are cool, great location and since I am not much of a writer I didn’t do it much justice but more than anything you must experience it for yourself

Because of the popularity of the flying pig Jeff and I were forced to share a queen bed, not an uncommon thing, out of the 5 queen sized bunk beds that filled our room usually only one filled by a couple the rest were close friends trying to stay for cheaper or just trying to stay there at all. The place is a little expensive with a single bed costing around 30 Euros so when a queen size is only 38 you can see why people will be ok with sharing, unfortunately none of the pairs of girls took us up on the over to switch.

Amsterdam has more bikes than people and this evident in the fact that the bike lanes are usually bigger than the sidewalks. It’s quite a city to walk around in beautiful buildings and canals are every ware and outside most large buildings again the bike population comes to light when you come upon what looks like a bike breeding area. There are museums dedicated to the greats of Amsterdam such as Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Anne Frank. The trademark coffee shops that provide the tourists of the giddy trial of being able to buy marijuana and mushrooms from a shop are everywhere and present you with a large assortment of types, flavors, strengths, hallucinations and pretty much anything else you want from Muffins to prerolled.

We did the Heineken experience which was cool; there were rides where you experience the life of a Heineken bottle and ridding a carriage delivering the beer through the streets of Amsterdam. It was a totally worthwhile experience and I recommend it to anyone going there, I will put up a video that we made in it with some of the awesome people we meet (heather, Erica and Britton).

We will spend a couple more days here then head over to Den Hagg for a couple days and then Rotterdam which are other cities in Holland; we wanted to see more than just Amsterdam in the Netherlands because it is more of its own entity. After that we are off to Belgium as we wind down the Cam and Jeff Saga.