The one where my 8th grade dream comes true (Amsterdam)

I can hardly believe it, but we are officially more than halfway, with the halfway point taking place around January 26th. We had Monday and Tuesday off of school, so combined with our Friday off, this presented an excellent opportunity for another big trip.  We only have one more, maybe two more, with Holy Week at the end of March.  We ultimately settled on Amsterdam, with a stopover in Brussels on the way home because it was cheaper than flying out of Amsterdam.  Ever since my 8th grade geography class when I did a presentation on the Netherlands, I have wanted to visit.  It was totally worth it.  Despite the cold, I absolutely loved it.  It is high on my list of cities to return to, and I would suggest it to everyone, though possibly in the Spring or Summer when it isn't so cold!

We left on Thursday and spent the night in Sevilla so that we could get to the airport in time for our early flight.  We spent a good chunk of the day in the Barcelona airport, before finally flying to Amsterdam and arriving in Amsterdam!  Marissa's dad has done a lot of traveling there, so he had given us lots of helpful recommendations and tidbits about transportation and where to visit.  We made it to our hotel after an exceptionally cold walk from the bus stop with little complications and dropped our things.  As is customary on our first night in a new city, we ended up going with the cheapest, closest thing we could find, which ended up being an Italian restaurant.  We split two pizzas, one artichoke and one spinach, that were absolutely awesome!  Reminded me of the ones I had in Italy, which is saying something.  

Day 2 in Amsterdam, we got down to business.  Through Marissa's dad, we had made contact with a woman who worked at his old company in Amsterdam.  Melissa kindly agreed to meet up with us, show us around, and lend us her Museum Cards to get us into the sites.  It was so cold in the morning that we decided to go check out the Hermitage museum while it warmed up and meet up again later.  The main draw at the museum was the Van Gogh exhibit.  Usually it has its own museum, but that was closed for renovations.  It was absolutely fabulous.  We couldn't take pictures, but take my word for it, it was so interesting and breath-taking to see.  The exhibit did a fabulous job of telling about his life through his art.  I felt like a learned a lot about him without it being thrown in my face.  For being a temporary exhibit, the museum was able to make it relatively fluid, going from the different parts of his life and reflecting Van Gogh's different inspirations.  I would love to go back and see the exhibit in its natural home some day!

Afterwards, we met back up with Melissa, and she took us to some of the local markets.  We walked through the tulip market, which was pretty despite being relatively void of flowers.  We also went to a market that was a lot like the gypsy market here in Zafra, but it also sold food, cooked and raw.  As you can see we got these waffle-looking things, that are sliced down the middle and filled with a caramel of some sort.  They were extremely delicious, but cooled down very quickly because of the cold.  It was lots of fun watching the guy make them in front of us.

We were starting to get hungry for real then, so Melissa treated us to a very nice lunch at one of her favorite cafes.  It was small and homey.  There was a ladder leading to a second floor where we ate our lunch.  I had a grilled chicken with avocado sandwich on ciabatta bread. After lunch we headed to the Rijksmuseum, which was also mostly closed for renovations.  I didn't really mind because I was starting to feel tired.  They still have the Masterpieces exhibit open, which houses the most famous works, such as many of Rembrandt’s paintings.  It was interesting to see, but nothing life-changing.  By the time we were finished, it had gotten quite snowy outside.  We went back to our hotel to enjoy the snow in the warmth.  Eventually, we made our way back out into the cold to get dinner at Wok to Walk, a chain that we had also eaten at in Barcelona.  It was delicious and a welcome change of pace.