With there being no more classes or exams (for me at least), my friend, Savannah, and I hopped on a plane and flew to Amsterdam for three days! Our first stop was a city about an hour and a half outside of Amsterdam that was called Nijmegen. We had lunch at a cute little place called Julia's and I had the best cappuccino cannoli. There were some markets in the town center as well and we both had a stroop waffle from a stand! Savannah's dad's friends were playing a Christmas concert in Nijmegen, which was why we went. Their band is named Venice and their Christmas concert was very good!! It was in the St. Stevenskurk Church. I never thought that I would be going to a concert in a church.
The morning of Day 2 was spent traveling back to Amsterdam. We did some sight-seeing for most of the day though. Our tour met in Dam Square and from there we went on to see the smallest building in Amsterdam, a few churches, the Royal Palace and more. One of my favorite kinds of food is chocolate, so you can imagine how excited I was when the tour led us to an amazing chocolate shop! I probably could have eaten all of the chocolate in that store, but that would be excessive. There was a huge Christmas tree in the Dam Square and right next to it, a Christmas concert was taking place! I heard so much Christmas music during this trip, but still not enough. I was hoping to walk through the Christmas markets later that night, but sadly I found out that Amsterdam doesn't have Christmas markets.
On Day 3 we stuck around Amsterdam to see most of what we had not seen the day before and to take pictures because it had been snowing all of the previous day. For those of you who don't know me, I am very big on reading. My favorite genre is young adult, so you can imagine how excited I was that The Fault in our Stars had scenes filmed in Amsterdam. Savannah is the same, so of course we had to pay a visit to the legendary bench that appears in the movie!
We also paid a visit to the Anne Frank House! Because it's a popular museum, we had to book our tickets way back in October just so it wouldn't sell out. There were no pictures or videos allowed in the museum, but it was an amazing experience being able to walk through the actual house that the Frank family hid in. For our last stop in Amsterdam (other than lunch and LOTS of dessert), we went to the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum, but neither had a student price so we stayed on the outside where the big "I amsterdam" sign is.
It was a very cold and snowy weekend, so after two cancelled flights, we finally made it home on the twelfth. I was very happy to be back home in Limerick, but I am even more excited to fly back home to Vermont tomorrow early in the morning!