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!