Excuse Me Miss, Your 'American' is Showing! - Day 43

   Oh Amsterdam, you are one crazy bitch. Yes, I can say that and I've only been here for a hot minute. I've got your number, Amsterdam. You ain't fooling anyone!
    Ok, so now you all know.
    I called her out.
    We should be good now - she won't be foolin' anyone else.
    The reason for this showdown is because at first glance, Amsterdam is a sweet, quiet, quaint little world full of wooden shoes and tulips. Bicycles and cheese. This can't be a land of partying and inexhaustible frivolity! Impossible. I'd never believe it.
     Well, believe it!
     She is a saucy minx who shows her true colors when the sun goes down. (Don't get dirty ideas - I'm not talking about the Red Light District, even though, I guess, I indirectly am. I'm just saying that if you want to party Amsterdam's your place!) With that being said, let's backup a second.

    After taking a cab from Pebbles in Southend at 5:30am, I got to the airport at 5:45 only to find out that I had to 'check' my small suitcase I had packed to go on the plane with me because you are only allowed ONE piece of hand-luagge. Are you serious?!? In the States, we get a carry on and a "personal item" - purse, laptop case, backpack, whatever. No. Not here. Just one. They almost charged me to bring on my pillow because that was considered another piece of hand-luggage. Whaaaaat?!? So annoying. Well, now I know.
    A 40 minute flight. We went up and then we went down. Best flight ever.

    Once I landed, I met up with Lisa and Kayla, who flew in from NYC and then we took the train and a cab to meet up at the apartment with the girls who came in from Oktoberfest in Munich.
    We settled in. The apartment is gorgeous. I'll post pictures of it as soon as I can. We have plenty of space for the seven of us. And the area is beautiful and is centrally located. It's just perfect.

Our block - 'Utrechtsedwarsstraat'. Holy crap, how do you pronounce that!?!

Is it weird that my first thought was that this apartment reminded me of the one in Taken? Hmm....

     First thing we did was eat. Of course. We headed to a small cafe around the block and enjoyed a couple of Heineken in true Amsterdam fashion.

Then we headed over to take an hour and a half canal tour, which we turned into a party cruise - beer and all!

World's smallest house! Located at Oude Hoogstraat.
The facade is a mere 2.02 meters (6'7.5") wide, and the house itself is 6 meters (19'8") deep. 

The Anne Frank House (from afar). The tallest building in the pic,  farthest on the right.

It's all about the (wooden) shoes baby!

Cloggin in style, y'all!

Beer in the boat! Woohoo!

    We disembarked and strolled through Vondel Park and then walked around the city to take in the local scenery.

    Fast forward to dinner at Stacey's (very yummy salmon dish!) and then we went back to the apartment to get ready to go out.

Once we were all dolled up, we headed to the city center to go to a dance club called Escape where there was, NO LIE, 85% men. We wade through a sea of men and thumping music to jump into the center of the dance floor and bounce around for awhile. Then, we were approached by a dapper dressed gentleman, hailing from Liverpool, who was there celebrating his friend's 30th birthday and asked our group to come to hangout with them in the VIP area.

We hung out up there awhile, danced some more, drank out of a bottle of vodka the size of Kayla, and then scooted back down to the main floor to join the mosh-pit-style-spastic-dancing. Everyone in the club was either wasted or stoned. Hence, we were forced, by sheer virtue of being smushed all together, to collectively jump around to the techo-rave style beats like crazy people. IN-SANE. Almost so much so that we couldn't hack it there for too long. A couple hours is about all one can handle of that madness!
     So we bounced to a few more pubs and bars to drink and dance some more and then stumbled on home about 4:00am. I can't say for sure, cause I don't remember much, but I'm fairly certain we all passed out pretty soon after walking in the door. Plus, early wake-up in the AM and lots still to do!

Night in Amsterdam on our walk home. 

P.S. - I just want to also state for the record how much I am LOVING the crew I am here with. Dana, my cousin, invited me to join her and her friends (Katie, Lisa, Liz, Kayla, and Sarah) for their trip to Amsterdam. I've met most of the girls before, but only maybe once, and it was brief. So for them to invite me to come was already super nice. But even better is how well we all get along and how much we are enjoying each other's company. No drama. No silly weirdness. Normally in a group this large, decisions are difficult, things get stressful, factions form, then the fun can be compromised because of all the nonsense. But not in this case - and I am really grateful for it!

     Once again, my case in point - now my cousin's friends are now my friends too! Everyone's a potential friend, remember? (If you don't know what I'm talking about and would like to, read my The Adventures of Diana and Stasy post.)