Long overdue vacation post, #3 - Amsterdam

On the bus ride to Amsterdam, we got the chance to get to know our tour group a little better.  Everyone took a turn to answer the following questions:

• Name
• Where you're from
• Traffic light color (Green, Yellow or Red)
• What you're most looking forward to seeing 
• Bad joke or most embarrassing moment (I opted for embarrassing moment)

It was a cool way to get everyone chatting and get some quick and dirty background information on who was who.  Of course, we didn't really know many names until later in the trip, but its hard to keep track of that many people.  Other than that, the bus trip was uneventful.  We had a couple of rest stops before we arrived at our hotel - which was nicknamed "Hotel Slut".  Ha.  We "de-bussed" and made our way up to our room, where Nick decided to do some impromptu laundry, since our luggage was still hanging out in NYC or London.

Lucky for us, we heard that there was decent shopping in Amsterdam - H&Ms galore, so that was on our agenda for the next day.  But for now, we were ready to get out and see a little bit of Amsterdam, so we signed up to do a canal cruise (all you could drink beer and wine, how could we NOT have signed up?) with the majority of our group.  It was very cool to cruise the canals of Amsterdam, looking up at the houses and into the awesome buildings.  Apparently IKEA is just as popular there, as it is here, because I saw a lot of pieces that I recognized, since people in Amsterdam apparently don't believe in curtains.

After the cruise, Nick and I decided to hit the town and do some exploring.  A couple of our friends from the group joined us to check things out.  We stuck to beer since it was so early in the vacation, but it was so strange to walk by some of the coffee shops and get a whiff of what makes Amsterdam so famous.  Fun fact:  Coffee Shops = weed, Cafe's = coffee.  Who knew?  Anyway, in our typical vacation fashion, this turned into a bit of a bar hop, as we tried different beers and explored different places.  This was definitely a place that we'd love to come back to, but we were lucky enough to get a taste of what Amsterdam nightlife has to offer.  It was definitely a "chill" type of atmosphere, and one that we really enjoyed!