Europe: Amsterdam Part 1

In the wee hours of the night on 29 May 2013, my Sis, Mom and I were on our way to the airport. It was my Sis and I's virgin trip out of Asia Pacific and I could not be more excited to see the world. It felt so surreal that after years of hearing about the Eiffel Tower and London Eye, and singing songs about the London Bridge falling down, I was finally going to be able to actually see them with my very own eyes.

We took a 7 hour flight to Dubai, before transiting from Dubai to Amsterdam for another 6 hours.

In Dubai! We didn't step out of the airport at all so I have no idea how Dubai looks like lol but I would really like to see it one day :)

The mandatory plane window shot

And after 13 hours worth of watching movies, falling asleep and butt-aching, we arrived in Amsterdam!!!!!

I swear it's so exhilarating to be in such a foreign land. Everyone's just speaking Dutch/French and I was just awestruck and seeing so many white people and there were just so many thoughts running through my head and so many emotions vibrating through my veins but the thought that stood out to me the most was I'M IN THE FRAKING NEDERLANDS 

I had never expected myself to visit somewhere so far away like The Nederlands, like the thought never even occurred to me that I can actually visit the place. Before, The Nederlands was just a country that had superb hockey players and the closest I got to it was watching the hockey team play matches during the Olympics LOL

I didn't know what to do with myself and I was just a mess.

We had to take a train down to the central part of Amsterdam!

And our journey begins ;)

We finally reached the Central Station of Amsterdam, which is the main train station there!

Even the train station looked so beautiful I swear Europe is amazing

Their train station looks better than any of our buildings in Singapore lol

And to get to our apartment, we had to take a tram!!

The tram station

and BOOM we were on our way to where we're going to stay in for a week

Amsterdam is such a vibrant place. 

We were seriously just moving past the streets and there're old men playing music and everyone's just walking around, and it just feels so alive

my momma and some old lady aha

And then it started to rain (on our parade) (ahaha)

It was raining so hard and it became so damn cold like around 8 degrees Celsius and I was only wearing a thin T-shirt with a jacket and it was so cold I was trembling and my teeth were chattering no joke

We alighted at our stop but we couldn't find our way to the apartment because it was raining and we were totally unfamiliar with the area (duh)

& can I just say again that it was freezing and when you exhale there're mist forming

it was that cold 

And look at how small the tram stop is!!!

We could barely cover ourselves + our luggages + making space for people to cross

And hence we got wet and became even colder

But luckily our host came to pick us up and we got to the warm and cozy apartment :)

We didn't want to stay in hotels because we wanted to really experience the whole package, not just looking at their attractions. And staying in apartments makes the trip more fun I guess, instead of the mundane, boring hotels.
We booked our apartment from here: www.airbnb.com and it's quite good!! These apartments are owned by people and these people will rent it out for tourists to stay in, be it long or short term. The apartments are also much more affordable than hotels.

The living area!

It's like an underground apartment and when you look out of the window it's actually the ground outside and 

you can see people's walking!

The kitchen area

The bedroom!

It was around 4 evening there if I remember correctly, and we were suffering from serious jetlag and we knocked from there onward after touring around the house :)

Day 2

We woke up bright and early the next day, excited to explore this little city.

Sis and I :)

can you sense our excitement

The outside of the apartment!

There were flowers everywhere!! Like legit every house had flowers outside

And this was our view every morning :)

Amsterdam is a city filled with canals!

You'll probably never get this in our bustling city... a canal with boats that people actually use right at your doorstep. The closest you'll get is going to Bedok reservoir or something

flowaaaaaas

The neighbourhood!

selfie in a window reflection ft. mom walking in the back

Every. Single. Morning.

This

Random building opposite the neighbourhood that still looks better than any building in Singapore

I think this is some college or school or something. Kind of looks like a miniature Hogwarts.

And it looks better than any school in Singapore. I'm sorry but it's the truth

And can you see the people cycling?! I promise there are more where they came from. Everyone is cycling in Amsterdam. Like seriously everyone i'm not even joking

yooohooooo group shot

We were headed for the Rijks Museum that day, and we stopped at the Central Station for breakfast!

After much deliberation we settled for Julia's Pasta and it was really good!

It's like fast-pasta. Like fast food but the food is pasta and it's gr8

They also have serviettes of superb quality. Seriously it's so sturdy that we took a whole bunch of it and used it to wrap all our food stuff cause it does not break or tear or anything. I even used it to wrap some traditional Dutch sweets my host gave me from Amsterdam all the way to Singapore and it didn't even tear. Amazing 

& then we made our way down to Rijks Museum!

The famous 'I Amsterdam' words thingy!

And weird contraptions in the middle of a pond thing

And to the museum we went :)

This is how we looked like at the start

& we took pictures of random things that held no meaning to us whatsoever lol

Like the back of a soldier

And miniature stuff

And an old piano

And ceramic wall things on the wall

And a soldier's armour

And silver plates

And other silver and gold things

& then we died because it was so boring I wanted to cry haha

This is my sis being all depressed and emotional by a window because the museum killed us

But we couldn't leave cause we paid for our tickets and we had to see some more stuff to make it more worth while

So here's a picture of me blowing a kiss

The guy looks like he's looking at me ahahaha

The Museum, My Mom, and The Giant Wardrobe 

We kept laughing at these 2 paintings because the people look like Mr Bean hahahahahahahaahahahhaa I can't

"Smiling but we're close to tears" that line applies very appropriately

The tinted glass windows were really pretty though

My sis tried to tie a french braid for my mom but she ended up looking like an Asian version of the people in the paintings hahahaha like those milkmaids 

& there's a library in the museum (idek don't ask why) and there are people who actually use it and they're all studying or smtg down there LOL

or maybe those people are just paid to look like they're really using this library-in-the-museum cause who the heck will go so far to use a library. In a museum. With noisy tourists. 

& after a few hours of dying, we got out and I've never felt so glad to be in the outside world :,)

I've had enough museums for the next 20 years.

We walked out and found this patch of yellow flowers!!

It was so pretty

& I spotted a pigeon sitting down!! ahahahaa i've never seen a pigeon sit down before

And then we did some jumpshots

I know I look like a starfish and my face is like constipated but ok hahaha

Fake tulips!

And we had our lunch at this food stall outside the museum... and the people working there are all so beautiful and i'm just like T_T

Mom's burger

Sissy and I's hotdog!

hahaha my mom's face

Seriously they have flowers everywhere

The weather was perfect

hahaha she found her twin

Taking pictures with random mini vans cuz we can

the food stalls!

And then we went to take a boat ride around the canals in Amsterdam!!

Fun fact: Amsterdam got its name because of the numerous canals they have there. Dam = something like a canal

d u c k

guy singing and playing his guitar on a bridge

The city is really so vibrant 

our tour boat :)

It was so sunny out that I had to take off the jumper because it was so hottttttt

And our ride begins

Fun fact: The buildings along the canals in Amsterdam are all slanting forward because the water's constantly eroding and corroding the bases of the houses, causing it to slant forward.

And they have people living on actual boat houses too!

Fun fact: All the houses along the canals have hooks at the top of the house because in the olden days the hooks were used to hoist cargo up to the houses for storage.

The ride got kind of boring after awhile because everywhere's just water and houses and the gentle swaying of the boat + the breeze just made me really sleepy and I almost fell asleep haha

We got off the boat after the tour ended, and resorted to just walking around to pass time. And what do ya know! We found the famous Vondelpark which was featured in John Green's The Fault In Our Stars!

There were couples everywhere lying on the grass and spending time together, and we considered lying down in the midst of all the couples and form a triangle hahahahaha

Just imagine all the angmoh couples and then in the middle 3 Asian girls lying in a triangle

But we didn't in the end cause the grass was wet. I don't know how those couples were managing

& I saw my first legit dandelion (not those in SG which are puny)

And this is me blowing it hahaha

Life there is just so laid back and relaxed. Everyone's just cycling everywhere, people playing music under bridges, couples laying on the grass, people walking their dogs, families with children, and even adults playing frisbee lol

and not to mention people painting 

If i could i would really like to live like them, instead of this fast-paced life where I'm always rushing to be somewhere, do something.

One of the many canals

This place is like their Orchard Road, but in street form and malls after malls.

This is a picture taken from the KFC there haha we were literally so tired after the whole day that we had to settle down in KFC and bought ridiculously priced drinks.

Oh and did you know that in Europe you have to pay to use their public toilets??? Like S$1/2 just to use the toilet WTF and we have to travel around the whole day so it's inevitable that we've got to use the public toilets and every time we go in we feel like we need to use more tissue and flush a few more times just to make the money more worth it LOL

There were many food outlets there too!

If I'm not wrong, this place is like Dom or something. Anyway we just shopped around here, but we didn't buy much because everything is so expensive.

And there were horse carriages that people can pay to ride on! It was just a very happening place and there's always something to see or do.

We also make very frequent trips to their supermarkets, and you will be very surprised at how limited their choices of vegetables are. Seriously, the only kind of vegetable they eat are like salads, and they hardly ever sell vegetables like cabbage, spinach, all that sort of veggie that you can find so easily in Singapore!

And that day we had visited the supermarket near our apartment in the morning, and we didn't bring our own bags to store the food we bought (they don't give plastic bags) so we had to stuff them into our bags. And when we got back to our apartment to unload, I forgot to take out a pack of raw chicken from my bag and I ended up carrying it with me for the whole day and didn't even realise until we were heading back LOL That  chicken can safely say it's seen Amsterdam

This post is getting too long and I'm tired so I'll save part 2 of our time in Amsterdam for another day :)