Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Amsterdam and Brussels

amsteram

we took an overnight bus on saturday and arrived in amsterdam on sunday morning. we ditched our bags at the hotel and immediately found the nearest pancake house. after devouring our loaded pancakes we departed for our walking tour. our guide took us through dam square, the red light district, and the canals. it began to rain after the tour so we decided to hide in a cafe along the canal. (side note: coffeeshops do not mean the same thing as cafes in amsterdam. do you get where i'm going with this?) we decided to save our money for dinner and grab wok to walk. this place is so great i'm not sure why there are so few in the states. who doesn't love a box of noodles?! anyway, we heard that the best way to beat the lines at anne frank house was to go in the evening so we only waited for about a half hour. i am disappointed that i followed the rules of "no pictures" in the house as now i have none. zero. so here is a good ol' google image search for you all. you're welcome. 

on monday morning we walked over to the ever touristy "i amsterdam" sign. we took lots of pictures in letters with other tourists who were also trying to take pictures in the same letters. trust me, i've already tired photoshopping those puppies. we also got to tour the heineken experience which took us through the history of the beer and how it is made. it also included two free beers which is obviously really appealing to a group of 100 college students. after the tour we went to the famous carousel pancake house for some apple bacon pancakes. in the evening we hopped on another walking tour of the red light district. for good reason, i don't have any pictures of this. if you really want to type in "red light district amsterdam" into a google image search, be my guest. the tour went into great detail about the history and the ins and outs of the industry. its pretty interesting that its a totally normal thing for the people of amsterdam. after a two hour tour we had had enough of naked women.


brussels

we were only in brussels for about three hours so i decided to include it in this post. as soon as we got off the bus we began the hunt for waffles. we ended up finding a pretty well known place called maison dandoy. we all got different toppings including waffles with caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, strawberries, and ice cream. yum. we then walked up and down the streets and stepped into every single chocolate place imaginable. most shops even gave out free samples. yes, free samples. by the time we got back on the bus we all had stomach aches but it was the best three hours ever. 




the heineken experience
pancakes at the carousel 
waffles in belgium!
so much chocolate

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