Until Next Time, Amsterdam!

      

This is right by Amsterdam's central square

Europe feels so old 

I love this city's architecture! 

      Time for my third and final blog post from Amsterdam! Today was my last day here in this beautiful city. Monday was spent mainly walking around and getting to know the city and yesterday was dedicated to the museum district, so I decided that today I would do what everyone kept telling me I needed to do in Amsterdam: visit the Red Light District. For the people that don’t know, the Red Light District is mainly known for two things: marijuana and prostitutes in the windows. I’d heard that night is the more typical and popular time to visit, but also that it can get pretty crazy at that time, so I decided to go during the day, arriving at around lunchtime. They don’t allow you to take pictures within the Red Light District, especially around the women in the windows. I’ve heard this is because a lot of the women don’t want their families to know that this is what they do. I learned that the Netherlands definitely has a different style of beauty than the US does.

            After eating lunch at a restaurant in the RLD, I asked my server if there was any coffee shop that was better than the others. Another quick note- in Amsterdam a café is where you go if you want coffee. A coffee shop is where you go to smoke weed. Anyway, he said there was one nearby that was a little more expensive than the others, but that it was the best coffee shop in Holland. After just a few minutes of walking, I arrived at Green House Coffee Shop. I’d smoked weed only once before in my life (in South Africa, interestingly enough), but I kind of felt like it was an experience I should have here in Amsterdam. Well, long story short, today confirmed what I basically already knew about myself, which is that I don’t really like smoking weed.

            After hanging out in the RLD for a couple of hours, I headed back to the tram stop. Instead of riding it all the way back to my hostel stop, I got off by some of the canals and walked around there for a while, enjoying my last afternoon in this city, for this trip at least- I’ll definitely be back! I thought about the thing that has made the past few days so special, and here’s what it is. I mentioned in a blog post before I left that, with this destination, I was reaching a goal I’d had for about four years. Here’s what I mean by that.

            Even I forget this sometimes, but when I was a kid, traveling wasn’t a big passion or goal of mine. I knew I wanted to go to Africa and work with animals, but other than that travel in general wasn’t a big dream of mine. It wasn’t until I was 21 and spent the summer working in Wyoming that travel became my dream. That summer working in Grand Teton National Park was life-changing because it was what first got me into blogging and it gave me a serious case of the travel bug. It was actually while I was in Wyoming that I started the planning of my first Africa trip. Anyway, that summer I set a travel goal for myself that I wanted to accomplish in my twenties. I decided that by the time I’m thirty, I want to have been to a certain number of continents, countries, and US states. The number of continents that I decided on was four. On Monday, at age 25, when I set foot here in Europe for the first time, I accomplished that goal. That’s what really has made this trip to Amsterdam so special, and why I’ll remember it forever. But of course, I still have a way to go to get to my country and state goal, so I won’t be slowing down any time soon!

            I’m now sitting here in my bed at my hostel finishing up this blog post. Tomorrow at ten am I’m flying out on an eleven hour flight down to Cape Town. It’ll be a long day up in the air, but when we land in Cape Town tomorrow night at 9:15, I’ll get picked up at the airport and taken to Atlantic Point, where I’ll reunite with Lizzy, Beth, and Cake! I haven’t seen them since March of last year, and it’ll be so nice to be together again! The next morning we’ll all be picked up from Atlantic Point and taken down to our second home of Gansbaai, where I’ll be spending the next month. It’ll be so great to get down to Gansbaai and see the White Shark Projects’ crew again!

            Amsterdam, you’ve been fun. Thanks for the adventures. Until next time!

Museum District Day!

The entire museum district was beautiful

The Rijksmuseum looked more like a castle than a museum! 

The famous Iamsterdam sign! 

    Greetings again from Dutchies Hostel here in Amsterdam! I still have to remind myself that I’m really here, in Europe for the first time. Today I’d dedicated to hitting up the museum district here- I’d already booked tickets online to the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. After walking to a grocery store that’s literally across the street from my hostel and picking up breakfast there, I headed out to catch the tram to the museum district. By the way, I always love visiting and exploring grocery stores in new places; it’s just a really fun and interesting cultural experience.

            Thankfully the public transportation here in Amsterdam is really easy and helpful. The trams run very frequently, make stops all over town, and have pickup points that are very well marked. I arrived at the museum district at about ten. The weather was so beautiful this morning! The sun was warm but the air was cool and breezy. I hit up the Van Gogh Museum first and spent the rest of the morning there exploring. They asked us not to take pictures in the museum, so readers are going to have to take my word that this place was very beautiful and interesting. It did a great job of breaking down the different types of things that Van Gogh liked to paint, from peasant homes and families to self-portraits to natural landscapes. He really only worked as an artist for ten years, beginning in 1880 and ending with his suicide in 1890 at the age of only 37. In that time he created hundreds of beautiful paintings and drawings, many of which were there at the museum. The collection also included hundreds of the letters that he wrote to his brother Theo, who also seemed to be his best friend and confidant, and was a big part of getting his artwork into the public eye. In fact it was Theo’s son, Vincent’s nephew that started the Van Gogh Foundation after they were both dead. The foundation opened up the Van Gogh Museum in 1973.

            Looking at all of the work he did, it was crazy to think that he only lived to be 37. He did a lot of paintings of poor peasants and farmers because he seemed to feel a connection to them. Some were portraits, some were them depicted in a field or standing outside their homes, and several paintings showed a peasant family sitting around a table eating. We also saw his landscape pictures that he focused on during the last few years of his life. There’s a painting that shows a yellow grain field with dark, stormy clouds above it and a group of black birds flying over it. The painting has a very dark feel to it and is believed to be the last painting he completed before his death.

            After my morning there I walked out to find a place to have lunch. While walking around I was again reminded of why I love solo travel. Don’t get me wrong, traveling with friends or family is great too, but there’s something just so freeing about traveling solo. It means I can just walk along random streets of Amsterdam without having to ask someone else what they’d like to eat or which direction we should walk. There’s something really nice about only having myself to worry about.

            Just a few blocks off the museum district I stopped into a restaurant and had some of the most delicious fried fish I’d ever eaten. Even the tartar sauce was amazing! One thing I’ve learned in my time traveling abroad is that America does condiments all wrong. I’ll never again be able to enjoy the stuff we call mayonnaise in America.

            In the afternoon I headed to the Rijksmuseum. It’s in such a beautiful building; it looks almost like a palace or castle! And right out front of it is the famous Iamsterdam sign, which I snapped some pictures of before heading inside. We were allowed to take pictures in the Rijksmuseum, and I definitely took advantage of that opportunity! This museum had a lot of different eras and styles of artwork. Like Van Gogh, the painter Rembrandt was also from the Netherlands and I saw several of his paintings in there!

            When I came out of the museum, I stopped and sat under one of the trees in the park area in the front of the museum district and enjoyed the beautiful weather and wonderful place I was in. By that time it was probably close to four, so I headed back to the hostel to relax for a bit. It’s raining here in Amsterdam this evening, but that doesn’t make the city any less beautiful. My bed in this hostel is right by the window, and I’m looking out at the rain and listening to it fall against the window. I’m definitely not used to being this far north- last night it didn’t get dark until after ten o’clock and this morning I woke up to see what looked like midmorning sun coming in. I pulled out my phone, hoping I didn’t sleep through my alarm, only to see that it was 5:30 am. Weird!

            Tomorrow is my last day here in Amsterdam. I have a few ideas of things to do, put I’m also going to just do some more walking around the city with my camera and enjoying the feeling of being here. Then Thursday morning it’s on to Cape Town! This post’s food for thought is a quote that I just discovered, and that I understand so much! “I am never happier than when I am alone in a foreign city; it is as if I had become invisible.”- Storm Jameson

Amsterdam!!!!!!!!

One of the canals of Amsterdam! 

Everything feels so much older in Europe

It's the bench from The Fault In Our Stars! Complete with "love locks"

    Greetings from Amsterdam!!! After months of saving, weeks of planning, and about twelve hours of travel time, I’m finally in the special place that I hadn’t announced yet. Getting all the way from home in San Antonio to my hostel here in Amsterdam was quite a process and at times a bit of a challenge. The three hour flight up to Minneapolis was no big deal, and getting to my gate for the second flight was also really easy. Minneapolis was an airport that I hadn’t flown through before, and it’s always kind of interesting to see new airports.

            Once we flew out of Minneapolis, at about five pm Sunday, it was an eight hour flight to Amsterdam. I was really hoping I’d be able to get some sleep after they served dinner, but it’s always really hard for me to get comfortable on planes, and I don’t think I even got a full hour of sleep. It was when we landed that the real fun began!

            Due to the fact that I was at the back of the plane (row 40!), it probably took close to half an hour to get off and into the airport itself. Once there, there was a line at immigration, which took about another twenty minutes. Even so, that feeling when I got my very first European passport stamp was pretty special. Then, after grabbing my bigger backpack at the baggage claim, it was time to go get a train into the city.

            I’d heard that for about seventeen euros you can buy a seventy-two hour pass that gives you unlimited access to pretty much all the public transportation throughout the city, and I definitely intended to get that. The first floor of the airport had quite a few little kiosks where you could buy train tickets, but an airport staff member told me that I’d have to go to the tourist information desk to get the three day pass. After finding my way there and waiting in line some more, I got my three day pass with the aid of a very helpful attendant, who also gave me directions for exactly how to get to my hostel. The Dutch really do speak great English! After all that was taken care of, it was time to go downstairs to the train station, which is located right beneath the airport. This was my very first time traveling by train, even for a short distance, and it was really cool to experience that on my first day in Europe.

            The tourist information desk attendant told me that I should get off the train at a certain stop, then go around the corner to catch the tram (there’s like four different types of public transportation in Amsterdam), which would take me most of the way to my hostel. After getting off the tram where she told me to, it took me nearly half an hour of walking, carrying my big checked backpack, smaller carry on backpack, and camera bag on my back, to make it to my hostel. By this time it was close to eleven (which to my body still felt like four am). I was exhausted, dehydrated, and jet lagged, but I was in Europe! Reminding myself of that made me really feel high on life.

            I knew I couldn’t check into my room here at Dutchie’s Hostel yet, but they said I was free to use the kitchen, bathroom, lounges, or showers, and could drop my bags off in their secured luggage room. A shower definitely sounded amazing, as did some relaxing in their upstairs lounge. I wanted to get out and see the city, but I could tell that my body needed a little break first. After freshening up and relaxing for a while, I decided to go out and get lunch. I caught the train over to the Jordaan district of town per a friend’s advice and, after just walking around, taking some pictures, and admiring the canals for a while, I randomly picked a little- get this- pancake restaurant that I was walking by. Amsterdam is famous for its pancakes- and they’re definitely different than pancakes I’m used to. First, quite a few of their pancakes are savory rather than sweet. They have some very interesting things added in that I’d expect to see on a pizza rather than a pancake! Finally, they’re MUCH thinner than any other pancakes I’d ever seen. The pancake I ordered was a ham, cheese, and pineapple pancake- sounds weird, but it was delicious! Savory, with very little sweetness, it was so thin that it kind of reminded me of a flour tortilla. It was a very tasty and interesting first meal in Europe!

            After lunch, I decided to just do some strolling and exploring of the canals. There was a really peaceful feeling around the canals, despite the hundreds of bicycles whizzing all around. Plus, there was a little place that I wanted to find and get some pictures of. I’m not sure this could officially be called a tourist destination, but there’s a bench beside a canal here in Amsterdam that was the filming location of a scene from the movie The Fault In Our Stars. I never actually saw the movie, but I loved the book and I know that part of it takes place here in this city, so I decided to try to find it. It took some searching, but after a while of walking I found the famous bench. Some fans had written or carved things on the bench, while others had attached “love locks” onto the sides of it. I sat on the bench for a while, snapped some pictures, and relaxed as I watched the ferries going by in the canal.

            By that time the jet lag was getting really intense, and it was past check in time, so I decided to head back to the hostel and get in a very short nap, so I wouldn’t be miserable the rest of the day. There’s more news that I could report, but I think this blog post is plenty long enough. Tomorrow my main plans are to hit up the museum district, including the famous Van Gogh Museum! I might also head to the famous (or maybe infamous) Red Light District in the evening. This post’s food for thought is one of my favorites, and a quote that I’ve used here a few times before: “Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.”- T.K. Thorne

Counting the Hours! Pre-departure Thoughts

            Well, this is it! The big day is almost here. Tomorrow at one in the afternoon, I’ll be flying out of San Antonio, first to Minneapolis, then on to my very exciting surprise destination for three days, before carrying on back to Cape Town. My bags are packed and waiting, I’m all checked into my flights and have my boarding passes printed out, and I have my hostel stays and airport transfers booked. Throughout the past few weeks, and especially the past couple of days, the excitement has continued to build up in my body and mind, as it always does before a trip. Even though this is my fifth international trip in the last three years, I haven’t outgrown this feeling of pre departure excitement.

            I don’t really know if there’s one thing in particular that I’m looking forward to most about this trip. I’m definitely super excited about this new place where I’ll be in about 32 hours. Visiting places where I’ve never been is always fun and exciting because even if I feel like I know what to expect, everywhere has its little surprises. But even more than that, this new place is special because when I arrive, I’ll be accomplishing a goal that I set back when I was 21, and that I thought would take most of my twenties to complete.

            Aside from that, I’m really excited to see my fellow White Shark Projects volunteer friends Lizzy, Beth, and Cake again. I’ve been messaging with them for the past few weeks, and we all definitely can’t wait to be together again. I’m also really looking forward to seeing the crew of White Shark Projects again, like Mandla, Tom, and of course Jerome. The blog post that I wrote about the WSP crew the last time I was in South Africa is still by far my most viewed blog post ever, and the thought that soon I’ll be seeing all of them again makes me so happy. I mentioned to someone recently that it was the wildlife that originally drew me to South Africa back in 2015, but it’s mainly the people that keep me coming back.

            On top of those reasons, I’m obviously really looking forward to being out on the boat and seeing the sharks again. After all, they’re what first drew me to Africa in the first place! One other thing I’m really excited about that probably sounds strange to people is returning to my routine of regular beach cleans. I talked a little bit about those the last time I was in South Africa. There was just something so special to me about lathering on some sunscreen, grabbing a trash bag, and spending some time alone out on the beach picking up whatever trash the ocean brought in. Not only did I feel like I was helping out by picking up trash, but those times were a great time for me to enjoy the water and just recharge out on my own. I used to think of myself as an extrovert, but as I’ve gotten a little older I’ve come to value and enjoy time alone so much more, and doing beach cleans really was one of my favorite activities the last time I was in Gansbaai.

            Well, there’s really not much news to report other than that! My next blog post will reveal the exciting newest destination- I can’t wait to share it! This post’s food for thought: “Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”- J.K. Rowling