July 12-14, 2019

Friday morning I reluctantly woke up to the sound of my alarm at 7 am and packed up my belongings to travel back to Amsterdam for the weekend. When I arrived in Amsterdam I took a tram to the American Hotel, where I was able to check in early and drop off my bags. The American was SO nice! Beautiful shower, gorgeous view, comfortable bed, and amazing location. After I got all my things put down, I headed back on the tram to get to the city center where I met Griffin at Pancakes Amsterdam. From breakfast, we headed to the Red Light District to visit the Museum of Prostitution, which was super cool! They had the museum set up through rooms that used to be used by prostitutes in the building and we could listen along with the various stories of women who had used those rooms. After the museum, we traveled to OBA, the public library which I had previously visited with the program. It was really fun to watch Griffin realize how much better this public library is than those in Seattle. Then we headed over to the NEMO because it was pretty rainy out and we needed something fun to do inside. After doing all that, we were crazy hungry so we went to the nearby Sea Palace Restaurant for some Chinese food. Not only was the food AMAZING, but the restaurant is floating on the water! This was probably the best meal I've had so far in the Netherlands. We were pretty exhausted from all of our activities, so I invited Griffin back to the hotel to rest before going to Boom Chicago (the comedy club) later. We took quick naps and then headed to Boom Chicago a bit early to grab drinks before the show. The show was just as funny as before, and even included some special guests who were alum from the show! To cap off the night, we went back to one of my favorite bars near to the hotel and grabbed some drinks followed by pizza. Griffin went back to his hostel for the night and I enjoyed my nice hotel!

The next morning, we were supposed to get an early start but we were both pretty sluggish and we didn't get out of the hotel until 11 or 12. We started the day with some waffles from a nearby bakery (mine had strawberries and whipped cream on top), and they were quite literally the best waffles I've ever eaten. Very comparable to Caffe Bene, but even better somehow. We couldn't really decide what to do, but on the tram the Heineken Experience caught my eye so we got off and went there! It was super fun, even the second time, and afterwards we grabbed lunch at Pasta Pasta. Since we ended up back in De Pijp, I was able to show Griffin around a bit and even ran into Scott and his husband! It was rainy and gross again, so we went back to the hotel and hung out for a while. After an hour or two we decided to take a boat cruise (we had gotten coupons for it at the Museum of Prostitution). This boat cruise was definitely way better than the one we took with the group, because the captain helped point out the sights from the audio guide, and also interjected with his own fun facts and stories. After the boat cruise we ordered some sushi to the hotel and just continued to relax. To finish off the night, we grabbed some drinks before heading our separate ways.

The next day I checked out of the hotel, and although I had planned to stay in Amsterdam for the day on my own, the weather was so bad that I decided to just head back to Delft and get some work done. Overall, the weekend was very fun! I'm sure it would have also been fun to go to Brussels with friends from the trip, but it was nice to get out of the bubble of the trip a little bit to see a friend from somewhere else.