The next day we were in Amsterdam (Wednesday, March 25th) we started by taking a canal tour. I didn't know there were so many canals in Amsterdam, but there's one almost every other street. We first got off the tour by the city square and went to the flea market. There were some pretty interesting finds there to say the least. After that we stopped at a bagel place and waited forever for a bagel sandwich. Seriously the customer service there was the worst! No one waited on you and they took forever to do one small thing. Frustrating. We must've read the canal tour map wrong b/c pretty soon our "green line" boat all of the sudden turned into a "red line" boat so we had to ride it around for about an hour more.
We finally came to the Anne Frank house.. very eerie to be inside, its the secret annex her and her family stayed in while in hiding from the Nazi Germans. Very well preserved, except there was quite a few artifacts that were undergoing restoration so we couldn't see them. I ended up buying the book (Anne Franks diary) at the gift shop (okay lets be real, MOM bought me the book..) and I got it specially stamped saying that I bought it at the actual Anne Frank house.
Next up--Winkles for dutch apple pie. It was alright, tasted like regular apple pie but it was good. It seems like they don't really want you to find anything in that city though. There is hardly any signs up of where to go or how to get there, much different than Paris or Spain.
We found a nice Irish pub and had a drink and some appetizers after the apple pie. Finally got to try their famous white beer (very good). We decided we should see the red light district at some point, so that was our nighttime activity. It really wasn't all that bad compared to what I had expected. There were girls in the windows and a lot of "red light district" type shops, etc but it seemed more like a tourist destination than anything. We found a bar there and had a few beers, then to a sports bar. While we were changing bars we saw a bus tour of old people walking the red light district around 11 or midnight! Really not the crowd I thought I would be seeing! The rest of the night was filled with nice bathroom attendants, pizza hot dogs, outrageous cover charges and bouncers, random $1,000 atm withdrawals, and me spending 28euro ($42) in less than 3 minutes.
Thursday--Elyse went to see the Jewish historical museum while me, mom, and Ellen went shopping. We found this pretty big shopping district right by our hotel the night before. There were soo many stores it got overwhelming, but we did find the department store called Hema. We bought stroopwaffles (very popular and very good) there. More shopping..more shopping.. lunch! Had lunch at a little cafe/restaurant nearby, ended up staying and talking for quite awhile, very good food. After our shopping day it was time to get back to CPH. Flights went well, and back to CPH we were. We just got pizza and some sodas for dinner and called it a night.
Friday--Another country... Sweden today. We took the train to Helsingor and then to Helsingbourg by ferry. In Helsingor, we met Dinos dad at a cafe/bar and had coffee with him. It was so interesting to see someone else finally in my place as far as language barriers go. Dino is a good translator, so it wasn't much of a problem, but I feel like now they have an insight to how hard it can be at times. We walked by the shoreline in Helsingor, past Hamlets castle, to the ferry. In Helsingbourg we ate lunch at a Turkish/Greek place Dino and I ate at the last time we were there. Very cool decorating, authentic of what I would think of Turkish/Greek. We walked around Helsingbourg for awhile, saw the fortress and some shops, then went back to Helsingor to meet Dinos mom this time.
Back in CPH we decided to have a night in. Me, mom, and Ellen got pizza and sodas (yes, again) and stayed in and watched TV. Man do I miss having a tv... not that I even really watch it that much, but it was so nice to have one for a night! There was quite a lot of talk about African surfers...haha..!
Saturday--Their last day in CPH. We were thinking about doing the Carlsberg Brewery Tour, but heard it was $30 so we decided to stay in and be lazy for the morning. It was rainy and dreary out anyways so I didn't mind. I did a little homework and then we met back up around 2pm. We ate lunch/dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and stayed in from the rain. On our walk back, we went to The Dubliner (an Irish pub on Stroget) for a few beers. Saw the soccer match but didn't pay much attention (at least I didn't know what was going on). By that time it was pretty late and they had an early flight to catch so we decided to get back.
Sunday--5:30am. Yeesh thats early.. took mom and Ellen to the airport and sent them on their way back to Wisconsin. The final end to my never-ending spring break. It was hard to say goodbye after finally seeing them in so long and the week seemed to fly by. It made me realize that I really don't have all that much time left here in CPH.. at that time it was about 2mos and 3 weeks. Can't believe it..
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