May 12th

Hi,

Why Sloan and I thought it would be a great idea not to go to sleep last night is beyond me. I am definitely feeling the stupidity of it now. We left the apt @ 5AM to catch a 7AM train from King's Cross to Amsterdam by way of Brussels.

Naturally at King's Cross we stopped and took a photo by Platform 9 3/4, because we're that awesome!!

We had a connecting train in Brussels with an hour layover, so we got some food and waited. We boarded the train with our EuroRail passes and right before we left the conductor come by to check and said we had to get them verified before we could leave the station. So we had to get off that train and get verified and wait for the next train. Which wasn't bad because it was only another hour wait, but running on ZERO sleep was zero fun!

We got on the next train with no problem and off we were to Amsterdam. By the time we got there I was exhausted and we still had a whole city to see. Our original plan was to get back on the train a few hours later ad head to Berlin, but the next train wasn't until 8AM the next morning, so we had to find a place to stay. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. We dropped our bags in a locker at the train station and set out to see Anne Frank's house. 

We walked around the city a bit and heard this commotion and followed it to  a football rally. There were a few guys standing on a second story balcony shouting through megaphones and a crowd of people watching them and chanting after them. The crowd was holding up signs like FUTBOL TERRORIST! which kind of freaked me out, I thought a riot was going to start, but it didn't and we continued to Anne's house.  We walked over some canals and though tiny streets and passed LOTS of bikes and even a place called Jennifer!

Anne's house was amazing to see. The stairs are so narrow and steep and the bookcase is still there that hid the doorway to the upstairs. It was so intense to see especially when we got into Anne's room because some pictures that she hung up where still up on her wall.

After we went to eat at some strange bar and had burgers, that did NOT taste like burgers and check into a sketchy hostel in the red light district. haha.

We went to get our backpacks and walked over to the library so Jeff and Sloan could use the internet. I was so tired I fell asleep by the computers and a librarian came over to me and started yelling at me in Dutch for sleeping, so I woke up and listened to music. Shortly after we left and went back to the hostel and finally just passed out!!

 
-JEN