Our Europe Trip 2011- An introduction

More than a year ago my friends Jason and Millie began an adventure when Jason took a position consulting for an organization out of Amsterdam. When I learned of this Kate and I were eager to take advantage of their stay and visit them there, and Jason and Millie likewise were eager to have visitors in their new home away from home. As life goes, our activities got in the way of Kate and I visiting in 2010. We both decided to enroll in a graduate course in the fall, work kept us preoccupied as always, and I spent much of this winter hunting for a home to purchase, which I'm please to have found and will be closing on June 1st.

We planned our dates for the trip at the end of 2010, anticipating the potential that I'd be enrolled in another course- I unfortunately withdrew from this due to some over ambitious planning on my part. Work, the house, and the course were too much- and as I could reschedule/ retake the course at another time, it became the obvious thing to cleave away.

But I'm getting distracted. So Amsterdam is a place I probably would never had visited had it not been for my friends living there. So you can imagine how ironic it was when Jason contacted me, slightly panicked hoping that somehow Kate and I had not booked our trip. You see, the firm Jason was contracted out to ended up getting bought out, and as a result his project was cancelled and he and Millie were instructed to pack their bags and return home. I gingerly called up Kate and dealt her the news that our hosts would no longer be in Amsterdam. She took it in stride and we made the best of the situation and tried reading up on our non-refundable trip. We had the intuition to split our vacation over 3 locales, Amsterdam, Bruges, and Barcelona, so in the end we adjusted by spending an extra day and Belgium and booking hotels to fill in the couple of days we would have spent with our friends.

Some times life forces you to do things you might not otherwise do, and when you are lucky, it is memorable and beneficial. This was one of these scenarios.

We had the pleasure of having dinner with Jason, Millie and their newborn daughter Amelia before heading out on our journey. We excitedly talked about some of the attractions we had scheduled, and about possibly visiting them in their new home in Chicago (Before they move!) ;)

Additionally my friends Scott and Kristen visited Amsterdam on their honeymoon, and were nice enough to provide advice and loan us a "unconventional" guide book called "Get Lost" which is a fun read.

Before I delve into the sites I thought I'd start by showing our "Budget" hotel room which was in the "attic" of a hotel in the Plantage neighborhood of Amsterdam. It was small, somewhat crude, but surprisingly comfortable. The bathroom was ridiculously cramped and the shower had the traditional Amsterdam "flat floor" which needs to be squeegeed every time you shower. I had read about this in a Memoir about someone living in Amsterdam called "My Dam Life" by Sean Codon. I was sort of pleased to experience it- despite the inconvenience surrounding it.

While Kate showered after our Red-Eye flight I hopped over to the local "AH" grocery store and picked up some water and "Coke Light" (as diet Coke is called in Europe) as well as some things to munch on. Check out the swank plywood table with glass cover. The room actually had a refrigerator which really came in handy.

The crazy stairs that we needed to tote our suitcases up. I think we were on the 4th floor. We were aware of these prior to booking, and it was at the time deemed worth it to save $20 a night. They weren't quite as bad as people made them out to be (some described them as a ladder which is quite a stretch).

I'm not quite sure why I chose to take a picture of the toilet, other than to show that since it is in the attic- I needed to make sure I paid attention to my head, and try not to stand up to quick!

Check out the Squeegee!!!

This place gave me an appreciation for what it must be like to be an NBA player, since even at my average 5'10" frame, I felt vertically confined.

Soon after arriving we headed out to the Van Gogh Museum and out on the town- walking among the canals, the history, the Marijuana, and of course the prostitutes. I'll continue blogging Monday after the long weekend! In the meantime, I've posted some summaries of trips from the past couple years that I blogged about. Feel free to check them out!