Thanksgiving in Amsterdam: First day

This past weekend my friend Samantha and I traveled to Amsterdam for a girl’s weekend. It wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a girl’s weekend, we tried to get our other bestie Tyler to go, but too many things came up so it turned out he couldn’t make it.

Anyways, it was Thanksgiving weekend, as all Americans reading this know, and I was feeling kind of homesick. I think the combination of multiple tests and big assignments, seeing friend’s facebook posts and pictures about going home for Thanksgiving (and being a little jealous), and Spain’s complete lack of festivity for the holiday season all contributed. Thanksgiving is also such a nice holiday because its just like Christmas but not as cold (usually, but you never know in the Chicagoland area), and there aren’t any presents to lead to animosity; you just get to see your whole family and eat food and relax. It’s perfect.

So we had an 8 pm flight and we both had class until 5 pm. I had already packed the night before so basically right after my class ended I ran home, checked over all my stuff and left for the metro to the airport.

The flight was sooo nice compared to what I am used to. Being a poor college student, most of my trips that I take I fly on budget airlines. I think these only exist in Europe but basically you get a really cheap ticket but you can’t check a bag and you get no free extras that we take for granted on normal flights (no snack, no drinks, NOTHING). Also on these budget airlines they come down the aisles and try and sell you stuff the whole time so you can never relax or sleep because someone is always coming down the aisles with perfume or maps or basically anything. 

This flight, however, was on a real airline (KLM Royal Dutch) and it was really nice. The flight was only 2.5 hours but we got a sandwich, a cookie, and two drinks, all for FREE! The first time they came down the aisles with the drinks I was so not used to it I asked if it was free. I’m sure they thought I was really tacky but I forgot what its like to be on a normal airline.    

So the flight was really great and we easily arrived in Amsterdam. We had to take the train to our Hostel, which was kind of confusing at first since the tickets kiosk was not simple but we ended up just buying tickets at the counter from a real person who spoke English. I have to say, Madrid by far has the best and easiest metro system from what I’ve experience in Europe. It goes everywhere and you can easily buy tickets and its cheap.

On the train we ended up accidently sitting in first class (we bought 2^nd class tickets but obviously didn’t know what we were doing) but the conductor was cool about it. We sat next to a native Amsterdam guy who was really nice. He actually pointed us in the direction of our hostel once we got off the train and definitely went out of his way to help us; Ahhh the perks of being two young, lost-looking girls.  

Amsterdam was freezing. I expected cold, but after being in 50-60 degree Madrid, getting to 30 something degree Amsterdam (since it was night) with wind and rain was a little shocking. Luckily I brought my hideous, Michelin man, white, puffy, crop-top-ish, down coat for the trip.  

I think we were both relieved when we finally made it to the hostel. It was actually pretty close to the train station, just a little tucked away. We got an all girls’ hostel, called Hostelle and it was decorated so cute and girly. From my research of my place, each room is themed and they also had themed bathrooms. Our room was the home-y theme and it had little birdhouses on the wall and a pretty flower light fixture. We also stalked the bathrooms and found a hello kitty, fashion, and royal toilet.

Hello Kitty Toliet! cutest thing ever

Fashion/NYC toliet

Royal toliet?

Hostel Room

Cute light fixture in our hostel room

Our Hostel Room, awkwardly decorated with bird houses, but still kind of cute

After chilling for a bit we decided to go to bed because we want to go out and explore the next day and we were exhausted. The next day we were going to the Anne Frank House!