Two days left on our fall break extravaganza meant Amsterdam for a night and half a day, and Rotterdam for the other half and the next day. It was crazy how fast it all went by, but not really that surprising because we were having so much fun the whole time. We arrived Friday night to a city so different from all the others we'd been to so far. It reminded me more of Boston & New York. They even had Christmas lights and decorations already out which made it that much better! When we got there it was later in the evening so we walked around a little (found this really cool store too) and then came across a cute little place to have dinner. Afterwards we listened to a street performer that had a pretty big crowd around him. Some older, "mom aged" women even started dancing (a little crazily) in the middle of everyone. It was pretty funny to watch, especially when some girls my age joined in as well. On our way back to the hostel that night I mentioned how our Brazilian friend that we met in Paris was supposed to be in Amsterdam that night too and low and behold we open the doors to the hostel and look who's sitting on the couch. Small, small world.
Some pictures from the cool store we found:
The next day Hazel, our Brazilian friend, and I all went to the Anne Frank house. Still so strange to think I was walking around the house she was forced to stay in for so long... Afterwards Hazel and I somehow could not find the red light district (bummer) and instead found a pretty big flea market and did a little browsing. Here's something that reminded me of my dad :)
We then hopped on a train to Rotterdam, Netherlands where we would meet up with Hazel's cousin and her family. They took us to their home where we were treated with a nice home cooked meal. That was definitely a highlight after 9 days of travelling. That night we headed to bed early but not before Hazel's cousin's daughter tried teaching us some dutch. Hallo ik ben Melissa is about all I remember now haha but at the time I was doing pretty good, minus the pronunciation part. The next day they took us to the beach/boardwalk where we walked around and had a nice lunch at a restaurant there. Unfortunately we stayed there a little too long, which none of us realized. It only became apparent to Hazel when we arrived at the airport as our flight was boarding. We tried our best to hurry through check in and security but of course it was taking forever. We even heard our names being called over the intercom and got yelled at by a security woman. We ended up running to the plane and were awkwardly stared at by everyone on board as we tried to find seats.... Great way to end the trip haha. But really looking back on it, and even right throughout the trip, I realized I really do have the big guy looking out for me. There were so many instances things could have turned out very badly but in the end the worst thing that happened was my camera breaking. I'm so grateful I was able to experience four/five amazinggg cities (with Hazel!). I never dreamed I'd be so lucky. I only hope one day I can make it back to them all :)
leven, liefde, geluk
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